Mary thinks that Mat’s carrot cake looks like Christmas pudding. Paul contradicts her and decides it’s ‘really nice’. However, when it comes to triple star baker Ian, Paul chides his pears for bringing nothing to the party. The pears feel royally rebuked and shamefully skulk to the nearest off licence.

Tamal’s grapefruit polenta cake gets the thumbs up, as does Paul’s carrot creation. Flora goes overboard with decorative honey madeleines. It looks pretty but is judged stodgy.

Alvin plumps for a fairly classic pineapple upside down cake. As everyone else is whipping up cheesy frostings, he glazes his rings and looks uncomfortable. He worries it’s too simple. He says ‘Oh dear’. It turns out to be ‘superb’.

For the technical challenge, the bakers are tasked to produce gluten-free pittas. It’s bread, but not as they know it. They sniffily sniff their jugs of psyllium husk powder, then switch to autopilot and feel the need to knead. Amateur Paul wisely realises that all this effort is never going to build up the gluten strands when the gluten has gone off for a weekend city break.

Mary’s ‘correct’ pronunciation sets everyone searching for that elusive Dickensian character, Peter Pocket.

Anxious Alvin can’t remember what a pitta looks like. He considers oblong and triangular, but settles for circles. Sadly, he finishes in last place. Nadiya shows her natural know-how and nabs the top spot.

The showstopper is a dairy-free ice cream roll. Presumably for copyright reasons, nobody dares to say Arctic Roll and with chilling memories of last year’s Alaskagate, everyone now has their own personal freezer. Mary’s in a carefree mood when she says, ‘We’re really throwing it at them’. Well, it’s one step up from throwing it in a bin.

Several bakers are piping intricate decorations onto their Swiss roll tins. Nadiya goes for a pretty henna-inspired paisley batik, Ugne a heavy brocade, and Paul has chosen palm trees… and an unexplained rectangle… with spots. Ever the optimist, Mat is hoping that less is more. He pipes red diagonal lines, and then stops. He can almost hear Mr Hollywood saying ‘neat’, crisply emphasising the ‘t’ in that way only he can. Instead Paul worries him by saying that basics have got to be good.

Ian feels the pressure and thinks he’s planting his palm tree sugar stick into a lump of Parmesan. He means marzipan. Bless. Flora favours a chocolate bûche and Alvin introduces us to the delights of vibrant buko pandan – a Filipino flavouring that looks like Elphaba Thropp’s favourite tipple.

Paul’s unexplained piped rectangle turns out to be a beach towel for a bathing beauty. There’s much hilarity as he tries to perfect her pink bikini gusset.

Mat loses his ice cream and Flora misplaces her sponge, but in those fateful final minutes, an emotional Nadiya is deservedly revered as the guru of the alternative and poor Ugne is set ‘free-from’ the tent.

We finish with a preview of next week’s pastry episode, which shows Paul licking his lips and saying, ‘Your plums aren’t cooked, either’. I suspect I’ll have sweet dreams tonight.