Heel Holland Bakt talk #6: ‘Super gross, all those flower flavors’
And then there were six. As the bakers come walking through the meadow towards the Heel Holland Bakt tent, tears are already welling up in my eyes. Or is that caused by something else?
André van Duin had to say goodbye to his husband Martin Elferink this week, who died of cancer. That gave his opening words on Heel Holland Bakt a double meaning. Yes André, we also see the third week of January—with an empty wallet, a chronic cold and all our good resolutions having failed—as a rotten time of year, but that’s not comparable to how you must be feeling now. During the first episode, when Martine Bijl’s photograph received a kiss and a beautiful place in the set, our vision was already getting blurry, and this was another moment that made us swallow hard. You don’t expect that on Heel Holland Bakt, do you?
Layers with custard and minced beef
Although a large proportion of the bakes was once again enough to make you cry this week. André—as a lover of savory snacks—is deeply disappointed in the cheese flowers: ‘The only savory snack in it, and: inedible.’ Take those trifles. For readers from Limburg: you pronounce that trai-fuhl. Not trie-fel. Not even if that’s what your grandmother always calls it. And anyone who pays even a little attention knows that, traditionally, they contain not only ladyfingers, custard and cake, but also minced beef, peas and onions. Or is that Rachel’s recipe from Friends not the real classic British dessert?
Too much garlic—how so?
This week’s theme: a little too much of a good thing. Jeanette puts too much matcha in her showstopper cake, Aline’s trifle contains too many spices, and despite Janny’s warning, Arjen uses too much food coloring in his decorative biscuit. The height of it: if there are six cloves of garlic on the workbench, they don’t all need to go into the tapenade, says Robèrt, while Janny gags at the strong tapenade Pauline has made. Too much garlic? How so? Everything with ‘too’ in front of it is bad, except tequila and too much garlic, as the saying goes. Whether it’s because of that food coloring, the little potatoes on stalks he stuck into his flower cake, or the unappetizing cheese cream on the cheese flowers (Robèrt: ‘When I look at the cheese cream, I think: I’m not going to taste that’), Arjen has to leave the tent. And Pauline, who is also languishing at the bottom of the rankings, breathed a sigh of relief. Star baker: Esther. Finally.
Flowers and bees
Maybe you’re asking for it when you stand stirring and baking with honey and fruit in a large tent in the middle of summer (oh, didn’t you know that yet? Then we also have something surprising to tell you about Sinterklaas), but the amateur bakers are more or less devoured by a swarm of bees that flew into the tent. Esther has it particularly tough, because she is assembling a showstopper with geraniums and roses . She doesn’t need to do that for baking competitor Pauline, who doesn’t like those flower flavors. ‘Super gross, all those flower flavors,’ she says when she hears Esther’s plans. And when she tastes some of the filling from Esther’s cake: ‘Yes, I really don’t like it. And I like a great many things.’ So much for that cozy Limburgian folksiness, then.
Highlight
In previous seasons, bakes went into the blast freezer, came back out, firmed up in there and froze together. This season, the super freezer no longer seems to feature, although with the tropical temperatures in the tent, it really wouldn’t hurt.
Low point
Cutting out puff pastry in fifty minutes, making and piping choux pastry, making tapenade and mixing up cheese cream, baking everything and assembling it: don’t you think that’s a little too much of a good thing yourselves, Janny and Robèrt?
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