Bake Your Way Into My Heart ✔️

Episode 9: Patisserie Week II

SEMI-FINALS (PART II)

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"Welcome bakers and welcome to the semi-finals, otherwise known as Patisserie week." Noel greats them cheerfully with his signature smile still firmly in place despite the week he's had.

Paul and Prue follow in closely and come to stand next to him to face them all as usual.

"Firstly I have to just say that I am on my own this week." Noel shifts slightly and looks serious for once. "I know you're all aware of what happened to Joel and I'm not going to say anything further on the incident here but a full statement from the production team and from Joel himself will be issued on the Great British Bake Off Website. But Joel is OK, he's just resting at home this week and he sends you all his best wishes."

He pauses to give the serious moment the respect it deserves and then dials his smile back up.

"Secondly I'd like to say how wonderful you all look today." Noel continues as he takes a moment to look around.

Liam smiles and nods along, it's true, they all do look pretty good together.

He is still wearing a collared shirt of course, it's mostly crisp and white but it looks like someone has gone along and poured rainbow paint all over it from the top. It has a paint drip ombre effect going from red on his right shoulder through shades of orange, yellow, green and blue across the top of chest and finishes in the purple hues on his left shoulder. He has paired it with dark blue skinny jeans.

Zayn had looked like he wanted to say more about his outfit but he hadn't. He just politely said that he liked Liam's shirt. Liam had noticed him subtly checking him out a couple of times in the practice tent though when he thought Liam wasn't looking.

Zayn himself looks sexy as always, obviously. He's wearing a black T-shirt with wine bottles on in different colours of the rainbow. Underneath it says 'Into the wine, not the label' in white. Liam doesn't get the reference but he likes it. Zayn is still wearing a tatty pair of black jeans that have rips in them but this pair has multicoloured paint splats on it in various places.

The best part though is his boots. He'd walked out of Rose's room this morning, just as Liam was coming out of his and given Liam a cheeky grin before stamping his feet dramatically to highlight them. He is wearing rainbow Doc Martens and Liam had laughed when he saw them, they're great.

Maybe he really does have a thing about Zayn in boots.

He definitely has a thing about Zayn's hair though and Rose has done an amazing job at plaiting it all at the sides into really sexy braids that meet in his signature man bun at the back.

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"For your signature challenge this week Paul and Prue would like you to make mille-feuille. The judges are looking for two different versions of this classic puff pastry layered slice and they would like twelve identical ones of each of your chosen flavours."

They nod along as if they don't all already know this.

"You have three and a half hours for this challenge." Noel continues on and Liam is sure everyone else is also thinking how weird it is for him to be doing this alone. "So on your marks... get set... BAKE!"

Everyone makes a start on their pastry first of course, it takes a while to make puff pastry properly and the faster they can get into the fridge, the more chill and fold stages they can get into it which means the flakier it will be.

The judges peer on as they all start measuring out flour, sieving it into bowls and then, to Liam!s amusement, they all put the bowls of flour into their own fridges before weighing and cubing their butter.