As Week Eight descends, the patisserie is rolled out for the Great British Bake Off’s latest episode. After combating the perils of soggy bottoms and exploring the secrets of Victorian cuisine, I am a bit doubtful as to whether the bakers can be properly challenged by a bunch of tarts. However, it also happens to be the Quarter-Final, and the heat really is on in the Bake Off tent: these pastries have to be fit for a patisserie window with more finesse than that of your standard mass-producing, chain-baking ‘Patisserie Valerie’.

The Signature Challenge has the contestants produce two times a baker’s dozen of cream horns. A spiral of pastry with cream in the middle sounds easy enough, and I never thought I would appreciate the simple but delicious type of bake on a cookery show. However, for the first time in the history of the Bake Off, I feel like going overly intricate rather than staying safely simple was where some of the bakers fell flat. Flora’s ice cream-inspired horns with caramel wafers and tuile cigars end up resembling the aforementioned dessert mainly in their melting effect, achieved by the filling not setting, and dripping out of the bottom of the cones. Ian’s Black Forest Gâteau cream, meanwhile, which is wrapped in two types of pastry, turns into an overly alcoholic entity covered in stripes that do not fit together – rather like a standard Cindies outfit. Give me Nadiya’s undecorated rose, pistachio, and white chocolate cream any day.

If elaborate still appeals, the Technical Challenge is all about precision: mokatines, as it turns out, are delicate squares of sponge covered in buttercream and coffee icing, finished off with some exquisite rosette piping. There is only one relatively faultless performance, from the former Technical Challenge underdog that is Nadiya; but my brownie points and all the #attitude go to Paul. Usually so knowledgeable about all the doughs and tarts, this poor baker had never made a genoise pastry before; nevertheless, even when he hammers in the eggs with the flour, murdering any chance of achieving the required delicate egg foam, he shows an undying will to produce patisserie squares in whatever form. Talk about going down with style.

The Showstopper goes for a more construction-based challenge in the form of a religieuse a l’ancienne, i.e. a multi-tiered, free-standing mountain of eclairs, decorated with buttercream, in the shape of, well, a nun (I have intense flashbacks to last week’s tennis cake in not quite understanding the point of the shape of the bake). Of all the attributes, “free-standing” turns out to be the major challenge, with a disproportionate number of the nuns collapsing in the two-hour waiting time they were meant to stay upright for. Construction issues aside, Ian’s “nun with hidden passions” hits the taste buds spot-on even via the TV screen, incorporating mango, cardamom and coffee, and pistachio and vanilla. Nadiya, on the other hand, returns to her sweetie theme (fizzy pop cheesecakes from Week Four, anyone?) with somewhat less success: her bubblegum and peppermint combination becomes one of the rare occasions when I would not be ready to try à la GBBO.

The Quarter-Final is never a piece of cake, nor should it be, but this particular week saw a disproportionate number of half-baked performances. However, no one could be blamed for lowering their standards (I’m thinking Mat’s all-strawberry Charlotte Russe last week…) but rather for reaching for patisserie in the sky. I can only hope that it is more reachable in next week’s Semifinal.