The one person who stayed put with Bake Off’s move to Channel 4 was Paul Hollywood, so going into Bread Week, I was fearing for the health and safety of the contestants – how rough would Paul like them to knead their dough this time round? And I wasn’t wrong: the pressure rose higher than the dough, and it wasn’t just the ovens that got turned on.

“Maybe Scousers like getting their buns sticky in a fruitier way than the rest of us.”

That said, teacakes as the signature challenge kicked off the episode in such a humble way that I was starting to wonder whether Paul had lost his mojo. I wholeheartedly agree with James’s description of teacakes as the “poorer cousin of the hot cross bun.” But I certainly disagreed with James dubbing his flavourings a “Nordic twist”: I’ve never during my many years of living in the Nordics associated cardamom, citrus and cranberries and sultanas (and port-soaked at that!) with anything but my attempts at vaguely Levantine couscous.

I was equally perplexed by Kate’s blueberry and cardamom take on things, “just because it’s all the flavours of, like sticky buns, you know.” Well, no, I don’t know: sticky buns are all about caramel and raisins for me, but maybe Scousers like getting their buns sticky in a fruitier way than the rest of us.

Given that teacakes don’t really do it for me, my winner couldn’t be anyone but Tom. In his native Scotland, teacakes are a more mallow affair involving biscuit and chocolate, a tradition he couldn’t quite shake off in the tent either. Orange, cranberry, and white chocolate – I’d have a bite of that.

While the signature wasn’t exactly dripping with excitement, the technical certainly moistened things up: the humble cottage loaf may well be a sheep in the street but really gets the action going when it hits Paul’s recipe sheets. Handling the dough triggered whole new levels of innuendo that would have even Mary Berry blushing.

“Steven’s masterpiece The Bag I Knead had the bad cop of bread flabbergasted.”

To the cottage loaf virgins, the challenge is to get a smaller loaf to sit securely on top of a bigger one so that they merge into one in the heat of the oven; the best attachment is achieved by sticking your fingers through the whole thing pre-baking. It turns out that bakers have very particular desires when it comes to their finger action: “Do you flour your finger?” Prue asks Paul: “I could oil it!” Oh purr-lease!

Fingering the dough aside, the bakes never really reached the climax, and the general quality of the loaves was summarised by Kate watching her attempted loaf sadly swell and topple over: “It just, like, died.” That’s what she said.

After last week’s biscuity board games, I’d started to suspect that Channel 4 has a very particular preference for doing things in disguise. Tri-coloured bread sculptures as the showstopper confirmed my hypothesis: a cottage loaf may get your fingers going, but why settle for a loaf that looks like a loaf when you can have your dough as a bouquet of flowers or as apples in a picnic basket?

Now, I never thought of Paul as a handbag kinda guy but architect Steven’s masterpiece The Bag I Knead had the bad cop of bread flabbergasted. The designer product made out of manchego, chorizo and sherry-flavoured bread, complete with a curried breadstick chain and a chocolate and peppermint handle had me wanting to peep into Steven’s bag, too.

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But that’s where mine and the judges’ shared preferences ended. I really couldn’t see the finesse in Julia’s piece of imagination: the snail under a mushroom had a distinct kindergarten vibe to it. That is, until it veered into PG territory with the intended snail becoming rather male anatomically speaking. I can see how Channel 4 are getting their kicks from disguised bakes now…

Bread Week may not have offered the finest baking the Bake Off has seen, but it definitely didn’t leave me cold. I’m not sure I’ll ever view a loaf in quite the same way again