The Great British Bake Off Season 16 Episode 6: Highlights from Pastry Week's Technical Challenge

The Great British Bake Off Season 16 Episode 6 aired on October 7, 2025. The latest episode featured Pastry Week and exciting challenges.

For the Technical Challenge, the bakers were instructed to make a hot water crust gala pie. Paul Hollywood set the challenge and provided the same ingredients and recipe to the bakers.

As the judges went ahead with the blind judging, they came across various versions of pie with different designs and textures. They also ranked the pies from worst to best.

The official synopsis for the latest The Great British Bake Off Season 16 episode reads:

"Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond lead the bakers through pastry week, where they make savory plaits in the signature challenge before attempting a traditional gala pie in the technical."

The Great British Bake Off Season 16 Episode 6: What happened during the Pastry Week's Technical Challenge?

The Great British Bake Off Season 16 Episode 6 featured the remaining bakers: Iain, Toby, Lesley, Jasmine, Tom, Nataliia, and Aaron. Since the Technical Challenge is judged blindly, the judges were requested to leave the tent.

After they left, the show hosts shared the details for the Technical Challenge:

"So, for this challenge, Paul would love for you to bake, his take on the classic, the gala pie. The judges would love you to make spectacular, rectangular, pork pie."

The hot water crust gala pie should have a classic line of eggs going through the middle. Bakers had three hours to finish the Technical Challenge. They all were given the same ingredients and a "very basic recipe" from judge Paul Hollywood.

While the bakers got started with the challenge, judges discussed the pies away from the tent. Paul noted that bakers had to get the timing right.

"Too hot it collapses, too hot it cracks," shared Prue Leith.

The Great British Bake Off judge, Paul, also talked about an exciting point he was waiting to see in each pie. It was the hole on the top. It was supposed to be there for the steam to come out. If it was not there, the pie would "blow up" and the filling would pour outside.

The first step was to mince the meat. Some of the bakers struggled with it as they hadn't been doing that regularly. Next, they had to add spices and flavoring. Many of them confessed never having made a gala pie.

After that, they lined the baking tins with the outer layer and started filling the protein and boiled eggs in the middle, as instructed in the recipe. Later, when the bakers were covering the pie with the top layer, they struggled to make the said design.

At the end of the challenge, some of the bakers found it difficult to get their pies out. It was because a few of them didn't have holes on top, as noted in the recipe.

Soon, the judges arrived for blind tasting. They saw that a few of the pies didn't have holes on the top. Because of that, they had turned soggy. Those with the holes had better texture and taste.

The judges then ranked the gala pies from worst to best:

• 7th Place: Aaron,
• 6th Place: Tom,
• 5th Place: Nataliia,
• 4th Place: Toby,
• 3rd Place: Lesley,
• 2nd Place: Iain,
• 1st Place: Jasmine (The Best.)

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To know more about The Great British Bake Off Season 16 Episode 6's Technical Challenge, fans can stream the episode on Netflix.

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