Prue Leith's GBBO Technical Prank Has Twitter In Shambles
"The Great British Bake Off" (GGBO), a.k.a. everyones' favorite feel-good baking competition show, has miffed fans in its latest episode "Dessert Week" which aired on Tuesday, October 11. In fact, fans and critics weren't particularly happy about last week's episode either, accusing the show of being "racist" for its portrayal of Mexican culture during "Mexican Week."
In every "GBBO" episode, the contestants put their baking skills to the test in three different challenges that reflect that week's theme: the signature bake, technical, and the showstopper. The bakers are given the signature and showstopper challenges ahead of time so that they can practice during the week leading up to taping, but the technical is a complete surprise.
The technical challenge instructs the bakers to make a "basic" recipe, giving each baker the same ingredients and pared-down instructions designed to test the bakers' technical knowledge (via The Great British Bake Off site). Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith trade off on who decides what the technical challenge will be, and in this week's episode, Leith played a particularly cruel joke on the bakers.
Prue's ultimate memory test
There have been some tricky and trying technical challenges in past seasons of "The Great British Bake Off," like the pita bread, tennis cake, and Maids of Honour challenges (via Screen Rant). But the "Dessert Week" technical that just aired might be the most brutal technical challenge yet — and Twitter is up in arms about it.
The technical challenge recipe, provided by judge Prue Leith, instructed the bakers to "make a lemon meringue pie" (via The Mirror). Yep, nothing more than that. Technical challenge recipes are always scant, but according to fans on Twitter, this one took it too far. User @Dominus_Tempori tweeted, "I'm sorry, that's just taking the piss; is this a baking show or a memory show? #GBBO I can understand pared down instructions but '1. Make a lemon meringue pie' is just mean."
Before the bakers uncovered their veiled ingredients and recipe, Leith gave the bakers one last piece of parting advice: "Read the recipe carefully." This merciless comment was the icing on the cake — or rather, the meringue on the pie.
"Prue wins the award for troll of the year," another fan tweeted. There's a whole lot more where this came from, like this comedic depiction of what Prue's instructions were analogous to. UK audiences got to enjoy the chaos that ensued last night, but American fans will have to wait for the episode to drop on Netflix this Friday to witness this lemon meringue mess for themselves.