Rating:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Presenter Alison Hammond was off sick for the semi-final of The Great British Bake Off (Ch4), which meant Noel Fielding was left to shoulder the terrible burden of being the show’s comic turn.\u00a0<\/p>\n Actually, it went so smoothly that viewers might wonder why it needs two people to chivvy the contestants and crack terrible jokes.<\/p>\n The technical challenge was an apple tart. Wasn’t that a bit like MasterChef asking contestants to make a soft-boiled egg?<\/p>\n You can’t go wrong with the flavour, advised Prue Leith, so the key thing is presentation. That turned out to be bad news for Tasha, whose crust collapsed.<\/p>\n That followed a poor showing in the earlier round, when she, Dan, Matty and Josh were ordered to make financiers.<\/p>\n Noel Fielding was left to shoulder the terrible burden of being the show’s comic turn<\/p>\n You can’t go wrong with the flavour, advised Prue Leith, so the key thing is presentation<\/p>\n Just to be clear, that’s ‘financiers’ with a French accent. They are sponge cakes, not hedge fund managers. Not only did Tasha’s buttercream curdle, but Prue’s verdict was: ‘You look as if you’ve dropped one or two of them.’<\/p>\n With Matty and Josh at the top of their game, and Dan always capable of a good performance, Tasha had to really shine in the showstopper round. She didn’t, and won’t be appearing in next week’s final.<\/p>\n The challenge was to make millefoglie, which is Italian for millefeuille, highly decorated puff pastry.\u00a0<\/p>\n When Tasha needed a triumph, she chose such a complicated method of making pastry that even Dame Prue hadn’t attempted it.<\/p>\n Her pastry wasn’t square enough for the judges, and her curd was grainy. Poor Tasha looked like a little girl who’s just had her sweets confiscated.<\/p>\n Josh was the star baker, and will be the one to beat in an all-male final.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/22\/01\/78089799-12777811-Noel_Fielding_was_left_to_shoulder_the_terrible_burden_of_being_-a-3_1700616785599.jpg\")
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