- "The Great British Baking Show" season 10 winner David Atherton thinks the most recent batch of contestants probably just needed a little more time during this season's controversial brownie challenge.
- During "Chocolate Week," the contestants were asked to bake a tray of basic chocolate brownies in 90 minutes.
- Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith criticized the brownies' flavor, texture, and presentation almost across the board.
- "The main thing with ['The Great British Baking Show'] is 'are you someone that can work quickly and do it in a small enough time?'" Atherton told Insider in a recent interview.
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Former "The Great British Baking Show" winner David Atherton might know a thing or two about baking a good batch of gooey chocolate brownies. And his advice for the season 11 bakers who virtually all fumbled their batches during a notoriously mediocre challenge is quite simple: they probably just needed more time.
Atherton won season 10 of the competition show, which goes by "Bake Off" in the UK. Since finishing the show, he has gone on to write several cookbooks, including one specifically for amateur cooks.
"The main problem with 'Bake Off,' again and again, is that you just get so little time to try and achieve something. So, therefore, you're looking to cheat. So, you're looking for slightly different ways of doing things," Atherton told Insider in an interview shortly after the latest season aired its finale.
Atherton thinks the subpar brownies might have been a mix of poor luck and insufficient time
A good brownie is cracked on the top and gooey in the middle, according to celebrity chef Martha Stewart.
"All the way through 'Bake Off,' everyone has their bake that they struggle with when they really shouldn't struggle. Something that you couldn't do every single time you try at home, and then you get on 'Bake Off' and it goes wrong," Atherton told Insider.
He said that he wasn't sure if the colossal, across-the-board failure of the brownie challenge was a "collective thing" where "some horrible stars aligned and every bad bake came at the same time."
"The only other thing I can think of is it was very little time," Atherton added.
The bakers were only given 90 minutes to bake a tray of chocolate brownies during 'Chocolate Week'
The show has followed the same format for the decade it's been on the air. Each episode is divided up into three parts: the signature challenge, the technical, and the showstopper.
For the signature challenge during "Chocolate Week," which is the first challenge of every episode, the bakers were asked to make a tray of chocolate brownies in an hour-and-a-half. The contestants and cohost Noel Fielding said that while brownies are an easy enough recipe, 90 minutes might not be enough time to put together the finished product properly.
"To get them cooked, cooled, and ready in an hour-and-a-half is going to be tough," baker Laura said to the cameras during the challenge.
The judges were not impressed with any of the contestants' bakes.
Judge Paul Hollywood said Laura's Italian meringue brownies were "too sweet" and that baker Lottie's batch looked like "they've been dropped."
Viewers were similarly aghast, calling the challenge "an absolute disgrace" on Twitter.
—Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2020Atherton told Insider that the success of each bake can often boil down to the time allotted for the challenge
Atherton said that an average signature challenge, like baking a tray of brownies, or a technical challenge is usually achievable but what makes them hard is that the time is "tightened."
"I think that's the thing that 'The Great British Baking Show' lives off. That's the thing that sets it apart," he said.
He added that bakers often have to get creative and adjust recipes to make sure they finish baking in the time allotted.
"The main thing is, 'are you someone that can work quickly and do it in a small enough time?'" Atherton told Insider.
With time management being an important part of each episode, Atherton estimates that "probably at least half of all the bakers in every challenge are going down right to the wire."
He adds that during times like that you take a bathroom break at your own risk because no one is stopping the watch for you.
As for people who finish early, Atherton — who himself was notorious for finishing challenges quickly and spending the remaining time tidying up — said, "you can usually tell by how clean the benches are, I would say."
Netflix did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
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Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
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