And the rivalry has started! But in a very Bake Off way, says Emma Sleight, just mind your trifle...
Weeping meringues, flawless petit fours and the greatest piece of custard espionage ever seen on the Bake Off. This week was desserts or as Mel pointed out: stressed backwards.
We saw the revival of a Seventies mainstay, the pensioners favourite and Christmas pudding alternative: the trifle.
Deborah reinvented the breath freshener and Beca, who got more Welsh as the episode progressed, gave us a window into childhood in Wales: roast dinners and trifle with real jelyeeey.
We were also treated to a glimpse into Ali's homelife. There it was, like a Lil' Wayne video with the lads round the table, air thick with hookah smoke, poker cards spread, sipping PG Tips blinged up tea while a Sue Perkins' voiceover cut through the den of iniquity to inform us Ali raised thousands for charity selling sponges. Badass.
Thievery was rife in the tent with Glenn nicking Mary Berry's trifle recipe and Deborah dolloping Howard's custard into her trifle instead of her own. It was lucky for Deborah she took Howard's, if she'd pulled that with Mark it was have been a swift slap to the face with some underworked dough.
But it was lovely Howard who just took it on his lovely northern chin and tantalised us with a shot of him jogging. HoMi Baking, with legs the colour of raw batter, is a man who was clearly never meant to run.
Then came the floating island technical challenge of horror - a confection of poached meringue, crème anglaise and spun sugar that sent the contestants into a blind panic. Ali started shaving his meringues, Beca produced monstrous mutants and Mark, Howard and Deborah made what could only be described as oozing snot on a plate.
As the weeks progress, the rose-tinted euphoria of the Bake Off thins and despite the pretty background music and shots of frolicking lambs, they can't hide the build-up of gentle animosity that begins when floundering bakers start to pray for someone else to slip up and save them from the bake off boot.
It was Bake Off pin-up Ruby getting a few raised eyebrows this week for winging it in the petit four challenge. Luckily for her she's got natural talent as well as being, according to the Daily Mail, the contestant enticing male viewers. Who could forget that archaic recipe of baking + beauty = "my perfect woman."
Christine almost stole Mary's position at top of the list of people you'd most like to be your grannie as she churned out perfect brandy snaps and took the star baker badge. Francis produced an Oscar-worthy set of nutcracker themed bakes and Mark and Deborah limped to the sacrificial judgement slab with mullered macaroons and cracked cakes, only to face Mary and Paul's dreaded double cull as they were led to the Bake Off guillotine.
Next week it's pies and Paul and Mary are on the hunt for soggy bottoms. Will Beca regain The Silverback's affections? Will Francis finally prove she's got substance over style and the question on everyone's lips: what will Ruby be wearing will Howard make it through a bake without severing a finger, being burgled and with his muffins intact?
LOVE THIS WRITER? Follow her on Twitter @EmmaCSleight.
MORE!
Catch up with all latest on Great British Bake Off here.