‘The Great British Bake Off’ fans say emotional goodbye to George after his elimination

The competition in The Great British Bake Off 2021 has certainly got tougher as just five bakers remain in the competition after George Aristidou was the latest baker to be sent home, leaving fans gutted at his departure.

It was the dreaded Caramel Week in last night’s (Tuesday, Nov. 2) episode where the bakers were tasked with making tricky bakes with caramel as the main ingredient. 

Caramel is known for being a difficult and temperamental ingredient, where it’s essential to be very precise with temperature and have the right colour to get its distinctive flavour. So, it's no wonder that the bakers felt the pressure in the tent last night.

The first task saw the bakers make a caramel tart and George opted to make a caramel custard and banana tart. Once he had got it out of the oven, he frantically tried to cool his tart down in time, but unfortunately, it didn’t work in his favour as the caramel custard had curdled and the cream melted.

When it was judged by Prue and Paul, Paul said it looked like “global warming in the Arctic,” but Prue was impressed with the nice thin crust, and pointed out the curdled custard. However, Paul was disappointed that there wasn’t much flavour to it. Overall, George described his baking blunder as “not a good morning at all.”

The next challenge was the technical, where they had to make ten identical caramel biscuit bars. George faced another caramel conundrum when he took his freshly baked shortbread out of the oven and it broke. Then, the caramel was too hard to be piped onto the biscuit. After he heated it up, he struggled to pipe it onto the biscuit, branding this battle a “nightmare.”

As Prue and Paul judged the challenge blind, they had no idea whose biscuits belonged to whom and when they got to George’s, Paul described them as a “mess.” But when they bit into a biscuit they were visibly shocked at how hard it was.

“That would take your teeth out,” Prue said as she struggled to chomp on the biscuit, which earned her a laugh from Paul, who said that the caramel was “basically toffee.”

Unfortunately, George was placed last in this challenge. However, he managed to make up for his mistakes in the showstopper challenge with his salted caramel almond and hazelnut dacquoise. Paul said it looked “amazing,” while Prue called it “beautiful.”

Once they dived into a slice, Prue was delighted as she revealed, “I could eat a lot of that, George,” and thought he had done a really good job. Although Paul said it was just a bit too dry for him, it tasted nice.

When it was time for Prue and Paul to decide who was leaving the competition, they agreed that it was between George or Lizzie being sent home. Sadly, George was the one to leave the tent, much to the dismay of fans...

Viewers at home were sad to see George go and expressed their disappointment on Twitter… 

The Great British Bake Off next airs on Tuesday 9th Nov. at 8pm on Channel 4 - see our TV Guide for full listings.