#ive made lemon curd and lemon pie filling several times before

[captainsparklefingers]

You know what one of the skills of a good baker is? Being able to follow a recipe.

You know what's NOT a good recipe? 'make a lemon meringue pie'.

Even if you've made a lemon meringue pie hundreds of times before, even if you know how to do it, there are things you have to consider, like ingredient amounts, bake time, accounting for baking with a different oven and possibly different temperatures, using tools you may not typically be used to using to make your pie, a TIME CONSTRAINT that may not match what you usually use.

A decent recipe would provide that information. A paired down recipe should at least give you more than 'make the fucking pie'. It should at LEAST give you amounts to work with. Or an oven temperature. Or both.

It should, at the VERY FUCKING LEAST. GIVE YOU AN INGREDIENT LIST.

Every time I think the technical challenges might be improving or might be something that actually represents technical skills a baker should know even if the recipe itself is unfamiliar, they do something like this. Or like having tacos bring your technical for a baking show. Or tossing in maid of honor tarts that nobody has literally ever heard of. Or expecting a bagel to be crunchy and being surprised when a babka is on the heavy side. Or. You know. Most of the technical challenges in the last few seasons.

Prue and Paul are awful people for doing this. The showrunners should have put a leash on them to stop them from making the technical a nightmare ages ago. Especially when, half the time, it doesn't seem to factor into the judging (remember Helena winning technical on the week she left?).

I understand the showstoppers being intricate and insane (to a degree, the portrait cakes were a mistake), because they're showstoppers. They're supposed to be special and elaborate and not something you make every day. I understand the signature parameters. They might not always be simple but they're things people know how to do.

The technical? I have NO IDEA what the technical means anymore, beyond pain and making the bakers suffer and turning their work into a big joke.

#great british bake off #gbbo #gbbo spoilers #seriously that was just unnecessary and mean what the hell were they thinking #ive made lemon curd and lemon pie filling several times before #and i dont have how to do that memorized #because why would I when theres a good recipe to guide me? #and even if I can do bits on my own without needing a reference #having a thing to check and compare to is important #I hope prue gets all the shit for this #paul too because you know he's thought about doing this #mary berry would never #terrible. simple unkind and unfair and bad.