‘Yee-haw!’ cries Alison, bouncing around on a space hopper to herald the competition’s first ever 1970s theme. One false move and she’s on her back, which pretty much sets the scene for a notably wobbly, wonky week.

Starting with a precariously balanced signature challenge of a stack of at least thirty profiteroles, the relative quiet of the tent is regularly interrupted by the sound of bakers crying ‘ouch’ as they battle with hot caramel in their choux construction work.

Realising he’s made the mistake of putting too much egg in his first batch of pastry, Christiaan starts again but is soon doubting if he’ll have enough time to finish his stack. He does, but, like most others, ends up with a leaning tower. ‘Quite boozy,’ declares Prue, which partly explains the bake’s skew-whiff stance. Paul agrees the combination of chocolate choux, kirsch and cherry jam, kirsch-laced cream and kirsch and chocolate namelaka is ‘strong’ but ‘beautiful.’

Paying tribute to Freddie Mercury and Queen, Georgie’s pile of profiteroles is studded with white chocolate crowns and topped off with a gold silhouette of the great showman. ‘Excellent flavours’ of white chocolate with coconut and dark chocolate with salted caramel compensate for it being, as Georgie says, ‘on the squonk.’

Inspired by her parents’ 1970s Christmas tree, Gill heaps red and green craquelin-topped balls filled with chocolate and hazelnut crème pâtissière. ‘Not wildly exciting, but very competent,’ is Prue’s slightly Grinch-like assessment.

‘I’m sick of giving them to you,’ jokes Paul as Dylan gets another handshake. His Star Wars style stack filled with banana crème diplomat and salted caramel features a nougatine arc for decoration and a stand for added support. ‘Mighty impressive,’ says Paul, and Prue agrees it’s ‘beautiful.’

Having sampled two crucial components, Dylan’s structural integrity starts to wobble, and the judges beat a hasty retreat. However, it’s Illiyin’s bake that doesn’t even make to the judging intact. She goes into the ad break insisting ‘I’m just going to stay with it,’ propping it up with her hand. By the time Paul and Prue cast their critical eyes over her ‘Ode to the seventies afro’ she’s within a hair’s breadth of total collapse. Now seen resting against a storage jar, the profiteroles gain compliments for their white chocolate cream, raspberry compote and hazelnut caramel crème diplomat, if not their construction. 

Taking a brief break from multi-storey baking, the technical is a more down-to-earth challenge of a banoffee pie. While the bakers consider baking times, caramel colour and how to pipe cream in a ‘concentric petal pattern,’ restless Alison does a little dancing. And then, attempting some worktop-based choreography, she misses her mark and ends up on the floor. ‘The best thing I’ve ever seen, ever,’ says Noel.

‘Whilst perhaps not the best ever banoffee, ever,’ Georgie’s is deemed ‘almost perfect,’ with Christiaan as a close second. Gill comes last with ‘underworked’ pastry and ‘treacly’ caramel. Illiyin’s pastry is ‘tough,’ and Dylan has a ‘soggy bottom.’ Alison may find she has a bruised one.

Often referred to as ‘the decade that taste forgot,’ the seventies is also famed for its love of gateaux. Marrying the two, the showstopper challenge encourages the bakers to create a kitsch cavalcade of cakes.

‘Are you using dowels?’ Paul asks Illiyin. ‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘You are using dowels?’ he asks again, by which point you’re nervously anticipating that Paul’s new-found preoccupation with cake building regulations has a foreboding significance. It does. Her peach Melba gateau just about makes it into the fridge, but when she returns, the top tier is skulking shamefully behind the bottom. So much for the dependability of dowels. Prue says the medley of genoise sponge, raspberry compote, peach Chantilly cream and white chocolate ganache ‘tastes like heaven’ but it’s clearly a fallen angel.

Christiaan’s gateau is inspired by a cake from his childhood – the Dutch ‘sneeuwster’ or ‘snow star’ cake. Layers of hazelnut and lemon genoise are sandwiched with advocaat curd and coated in a fabulous psychedelic buttercream, which Paul describes as ‘the most gregarious we’ve ever had in the tent.’ Unfortunately, the judges are in less of a party mood about the flavour, which they say is ‘too boozy’ and Prue adds that the lightness of the genoise has been lost by it being ‘stuffed full of hazelnuts.’

Also uncharacteristically missing the mark on the flavour front this week, Dylan’s impressive looking four tiers of chocolate sponge with peppermint buttercream is deemed too minty and, despite its perfectly upright construction, Paul says he’d have preferred it to lean ‘a little more towards the chocolate side.’

As the only baker left who remembers the seventies, Gill’s bake fondly recalls her childhood visits to Geoff’s Café for a slice of Black Forest gateau. Said cake sits atop two others, which, though similarly flavoured with black cocoa, cherry and mascarpone are also given what she describes as a ‘gopping’ finish of shagpile buttercream. However, if the appearance is of questionable taste, the flavour is not. ‘Delicious,’ says Paul, praising the cake’s texture, and Prue says the ‘pop’ of cherries is ‘a stroke of genius.’

Georgie certainly has some useful family members. After last week’s aunt with the marzipan plums and the one who’s custodian of the family tiramisu recipe, we’re now told of an aunt with a 1970s bathroom. Of course, it may the same person all along, in which case she’s clearly a mine of inspiration. Taking her creative cue from a colour scheme of vivid green and pink, Georgie also goes for a vibrant Black Forest vibe, with chocolate sponge, mascarpone cream and morello cherry jam. ‘It’s sort of a trifle really, but it tastes delicious,’ says Prue. ‘Lovely soft sponge,’ agrees Paul, but he’s shocked to hear it’s soaked in a full bottle of kirsch and sensibly suggests ‘I’ll be walking home then.’

Sadly, it’s Illiyin who ends up walking, whilst Georgie gets her second Star Baker title. And after all that seventies’ sweet stuff, I for one am desperate for something a little more savoury. Thankfully, Beverley from Abigail’s Party unexpectedly comes to the rescue. ‘A little cheesy pineapple one? Take another – save me coming back.’

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