Great British Bake Off episode 7 review: A scorching Italian week served up more substance than style

Fittingly, it was hotter than Palermo in the tent for Bake Off’s first ever Italian week. 40 degrees is all very well when all you have to do is lie on a sun lounger on the continent sipping Aperol Spritz, but it is a different matter when you’re manhandling pastry and flinging pizza bases about under canvas.

As the temperature rose and the six remaining contestants sweated under the pressure, I’ll remember this episode not for the spectacular looking bakes – this was more about nailing the processes than arresting looks – but for the sadistic pleasure Paul Hollywood took in watching the perfect storm of tricky creations and the hottest day of the year unfold. That and the fact that dear Noel Fielding came dressed as a pizza.

From the first “on your marks, get set….infornare,” (“bake” in Italian, obviously) it was a hot mess for some. The signature called for 18 cannoli shells filled with something that wouldn’t splatter everywhere when the judges took a bite. My favourite versions of the Sicilian delicacy involved alcohol. Kudos to Kate for incorporating limoncello, negroni and espresso martini in her line-up. Liam’s chosen fillings apparently reflected his personality. Narcissistic cannoli for generation selfie, it may have been, but his baklava-inspired batch - the boy eats a lot of Turkish food apparently - looked banging.

Everyone feared the wrath of the Sicilians if they deviated from the traditional ricotta base. Everyone that is except former Army officer and stunt-woman-in-training Sophie who opted for mascarpone. I think she would just flick her glossy brown hair and smile in the face of the Mob. Paul, ever the voice of doom, called the move “highly unusual”.

Stacey and Yan’s efforts were underdone and despite their early promise, Kate’s cannoli weren‘t boozy enough for Prue. Steven's Sicilian lemon offering made Paul look like he was chewing a wasp but the judge still loved it and Sophie proved everyone wrong when her alternative filling was one of the few that didn't melt everywhere.

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Each week we learn a little bit more about our new(ish) line-up. This time it was their drinking habits. Fielding declared limoncello his favourite tipple. If I’d been a betting woman, I think I would have gone for absinthe, but the fact he favours the beverage of choice that 14-year-olds down on summer holidays when they hope the parents aren't watching is weirdly endearing. Not to be outdone, Sandi Toksvig told an odd anecdote about a night on the espresso martinis: “I had one once and at the end of drinking it, I gave away all my jewellery to strangers. Terrifying drink.” I think she would be wise not to try and out-weird her co-host too often or things could get dark quickly.

Still, I’m all for silliness and there was plenty of it this week. Prue had a go at explaining the pizza margherita technical in Italian and the foursome turned up wearing sunglasses. Then it all got briefly serious when Kate said she had “chopped the top of her finger off” in the fan. I half expected Noel to come out in a paramedic uniform (there is something rather Mr Benn-ish about him, after all). Luckily it only required the small blue plaster treatment before everyone got on with their tomato sauce. There was a communal fear of tossing the bases but it was getting the pizza from the worktop to the oven that proved trickier. It was not Kate’s day and hers concertinaed. Yan had undercooked her effort again and Steven, who I suspect underplayed his Italian roots, was the eventual winner at the gingham atler.

Fielding is also proving to be a master of saying what everyone is thinking, without any malice. Whether that's making digs about Hollywood's deep tan or neatly summing up the competitors: “Stacey is like the John McEnroe of baking, you might get a saucepan in the face or you might get a hug.”

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What the showstopper lacked in visual appeal, it made up for in complexity. They had to make a batch of sfogliatelle – flaky pastry, essentially, in the shape of lobster claws and filled with something delicious. It involved rolling out 14 metres of wafer-thin pastry to get the required lamination. Prue called it “pure murder”, Noel’s weird voiceover told us it was “the most complex pastry challenge ever set on Bake Off".

“Even I struggled when I was in Italy making it myself,” said Paul, the smug git. It felt a bit like they were trying to convince us it was as entertaining to watch as one of the more impressive-looking showstoppers. It wasn’t and no one seemed to be having a good time surrounded by tendrils of pastry. "It might well kill me, but they never said you had to be alive to take the judgement,” said Yan as she struggled to master the layers. Stacey had suffered with self doubt the whole weekend and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She declared hers “crapiatelle”. Someone needs to tell her that most of us armchair judges couldn’t rustle-up some basic biscuits that would get Prue and Paul’s approval, never mind a zillion-layer continental creation.

Thank goodness Noel was there to be consistent in his ridiculousness when the going got tough: “I don’t think no lamination is the end of the world, I mean I’m not laminated and I’m having a great time.” Quite.

When it came to the judging, it was a field of two halves. Liam, Steven and Sophie aced it. Steven was told by Paul that he could sell his in a pastry shop in Italy and was given the star baker crown. While both Kate and Stacey had issues with lamination and presentation, it was scientist Yan’s doughy sfogliatelle that was an under-bake too far for the judges and saw her leave the tent. I'll miss the contestant that brought binary code to Bake Off but with only five left, there's no room for raw dough in this mix.