'The Great British Baking Show' Season 7 Quarterfinal Recap: Pastries

The Great British Baking Show hits pastries for the Season 10 quarterfinal. Pastry is one of the standards of the series, having been a Weekly Challenge every season save Series 2 (never seen in the U.S.) and 3 (PBS Season 5, aka GBBS: The Beginnings on Netflix). In those seasons, the "Pastry" challenge week was replaced with "Pies" instead.

It's not wrong to equate the two: Several of the "Pastry" challenges over the years have been pretty pie heavy, and this season is one of them. That's a little disappointing. "Pastries" is one of those challenges that usually comes later in the seasons because these require multiple skillsets, all firing at once. It also can encompass a vast swath of different types of pastry, like eclairs, or Vol-au-vents.

But this season's Pastry Week is mainly comprised of pies. The Signature is the fresh tart classic the Tarte Tatin. This pastry from the 1880s was initially made with apples and is sweet. (The origin story says the Hotel Tatin chef was attempting to make an apple pie and this resulted.) So as the added twist, our contestants are being asked to make Savoury Tarte Tatin.