The Great British Baking Show Season-Finale Recap: Hangin’ Tough

The Great British Baking Show
The Final
Season 15 Episode 10
Editor’s Rating ★★★
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It seems like everyone had a hard time sticking the landing this season: Dylan, who choked in the final, the show, which came up with one of the dumbest showstoppers in history, and Georgie, who almost didn’t roll down the hill after she promised Paul Hollywood she would if she won. Thank King Charles III and his sausage fingers that Paul kept her honest and got grass stains all over her dress. But in the end Georgie was a deserving winner and not only the first Welsh winner, but the first Welsh finalist. That might not seem like a big deal to everyone outside of the UK, but national pride runs deep among the four nations in that sausage-fingered grasp. In the immortal worlds of Ted Lasso, “How many countries are in this country.” Too many! But Georgie did hers proud. 

At the very top of the episode, we get one of my favorite parts of the season, which is checking in with each of the bakers at home and me crying hearing about how proud all their loved ones are of their accomplishments. Look at Georgie’s gorgeous kids and the lovely hills and dales of Wales. Look at Christiaan’s really hot partner and did they see me across the bar and like my vibes. Look at Dylan’s mom, dad, and grandma and how they all helped him to be the culinary success that he is today. Who needs anti-depressants or our own parents’ approval when we have home visits? 

The signature is to make two sets of a dozen scones, one savory and sweet, and they both have to be filled. This is an excellent challenge because no baked good holds as large of a place in the national imagination as the scone. (If you’re ever in the UK, the Maple Walnut Scone at Gail’s is amazing.) Both Dylan and Georgie struggle with theirs, having to remake at least one batch and then being crunched for time. Only Christiaan seems to sail through. Prue thinks his savory scones, which are a combination of just about every flavor — curry, mustard, chili — have a nice kick even though Paul thinks they’re a little underbaked. His sweet scones are coconut and lime and Prue loves them as much as Paul loves the word “concertina.” I’ve noticed its creep all season, but this episode it was all over the place and right in your face, like Noel’s absolutely perfect wolfman jumper who somehow had eyeballs for abs, only bad. 

They aren’t as enamored with Georgie’s scones, which are a little bit all over the place. Paul says her herbs and cheese scones are a little too tough and he’s not a fan of her raspberry scones, either. She had to remake them with fewer raspberries so they’d rise properly but then Paul says there wasn’t enough raspberry. Who is he, Carol Channing?

But it’s Dylan who proverbially screwed the proverbial pooch. Rebaking his scones left him short on time and he needed Christiaan’s caring hands to help him finish, and even that left him with a pile of half-filled scones slowly leaking on his plate. But Prue says his fennel seed and celeriac scones with smoked salmon are nice, light, and delicious. Neither like his marinated strawberry and clotted cream scones, which Paul says are tough and Prue says don’t have enough strawberries. Who is she? Carol Channing? Oops, that joke only works with raspberries. 

The technical is to make a fancy tea tray with a lemon sandwich cake, four strawberry tarts, and four plaited egg and cress rolls. Prue says that they should know how to make all of these things, it’s more of a task of organization than of baking. For that reason I love this challenge, it shows off a variety of skills and is complicated but also simple enough. However, tea is not something that English people do all the time. It’s more for American tourists staying at fancy hotel or spending a day in Fortnum and Mason, which makes a bomb-ass Coronation Chicken sandwich. 

Again, Dylan absolutely chokes. He makes the lemon cakes three times because the first two times they sink in the middle and look terrible. It gets so bad that Alison needs to cheer him up so she tries to get a piggyback ride from him. As much as I would love to give Alison a piggy back ride, I think I would much rather climb all over Dylan. Our poor Dylan, it doesn’t really help and he can’t figure out how to plait his tiny rolls even though Paul just gave him a demonstration several weeks ago. The other two bakers are just whizzing along while we watch Dylan ride the struggle bus all the way to Slough to feel sorry for himself. When facing the judges, it is Dylan in last, Georgie in the middle, and Christiaan on top. For a moment I think that maybe Christiaan is a dark horse who is going to snatch the crown (in RuPaul’s Drag Race parlance) at the last minute.

While Dylan lost it in the technical, I lost it when they explained the showstopper. The bakers have to make a hanging cake. What in the everloving fuck is a hanging cake? I get it, a cake that hangs, but why? Who came up with this? Who thought this was a good idea? The producers have really relented on these silly, architectural challenges and this season was so wonderfully back to basics. But then, at the final hour, they come up with something that not only makes no sense but no one has ever heard of before. What is the benefit of having the cake hanging? Who wants a hanging cake? Why would you order one? Why can’t they just make a really nice, three-tiered cake and present it on a stand like normal? This is so dumb. It’s so dumb that they can’t even take their hanging cakes outside to present to the crowd who has gathered to find out the winner. If you can’t present it to everyone hanging, why is it even hanging in the first place? 

The competition seemed like Dylan’s to lose coming into it, but he continues to choke on this challenge, making Genoise sponges that he knows are lumpy and then having to cut the lumps out, like so many wolfman ab eyeballs, to present to the judges. And just as Paul warns about concertina-ing layers — that word again — the cake then went to a whole concert by Tina Turner and proved Paul right. 

Dylan is the first to present his cake and it is three different cubes with gold and fondant falling off so that they look like some houses in Murano that he fell in love with. It’s conceptual and abstract, but, as Prue says, he would need to explain it to everyone at the party. I would counter with he would have to explain why the hell it’s hanging in the first place, but what do I know? The cake is Earl Grey tea-infused with mascarpone cream and candied orange. Prue says that the tea works really well, but Paul doesn’t like the inconsistency of the layers and that there is not enough orange. It looks like Dylan is out of it. 

Christiaan’s lemon poppy seed cake with raspberry and licorice jam looks like a lampshade or a chandelier but that is probably just because it’s hanging and the top layer, the best of them all, is pink and jagged and looks like something you would find hanging over a communal table in a cool East London coffee shop called FUCKOFFEE. (That exists. It’s near my house.) Prue says she never tasted anything like it before, but that is not a compliment. Just like so many times this season, Christiaan’s experimentation with flavors shot him in his pretty Dutch foot. 

It’s pretty clear as soon as Georgie presents her hanging masterpiece that she is about to walk home with a cake stand, but she’s not going to steal it like Gill did her lilac bowl last episode. First of all, she’s the only one who thought to decorate the ugly hanging stand with a vine. If they’re going to force you to hang, you might as well make it pretty. But her cake is altogether beautiful. The decoration is floral themed and she draws several lovely flowers over two layers and puts a floral stencil on the center layer making it look like it was covered by edible wallpaper. When Prue tastes the lemon, strawberry, and champagne cake she says, “It’s utterly delicious.” Prue is right, sometimes simple flavors, trusted flavors are best because there is a reason they are classics. Paul says if he was served that cake at a summer party he would be a happy man. 

It turns out he is so happy that Georgie wins, rolls down the hill, and sails into all of our hearts. While I feel bad for our collective imaginary boyfriend Dylan, he got what he wanted out of this experience, a job in the kitchen of a Michelin-starred restaurant, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he ended up with a baking show of his own. Georgie keeps talking about how this is the best experience of her life and how she’s going to miss baking in the tent. This is her crowning achievement and we couldn’t be prouder of her, or all of the other bakers who made this a magical season. Thanks for the joy, the tears, the messups, and Nelly mastering the test of strength at the finale carnival. Now if someone can figure out how to send me a slice of Georgie’s hanging cake and Noel’s wolfman jumper, it would be much appreciated.