The Great British Bake Off 2018: Karen has a '˜pretty sad' dessert week

If you’ve not yet watched episode four, turn back now. This article contains spoilers for the fourth week.

After a difficult few weeks, Karen had a lot to prove as she arrived for week four in the tent.

The Wakefield-based baker was one of nine contestants to earn a place in dessert week.

In an unusual twist, retired air steward Terry was absent from the week due to illness. The judges and contestants agreed that he would be allowed to return to the tent the following week.

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This meant additional pressure for the eight remaining bakers as they began work on their signature meringue roulades.

The complicated bake involves meringue with a creamy filling, rolled into a tight spiral.

Paul declared: “The beauty of this challenge is there’s nowhere to hide. If you make a mistake, that’s it.”

Karen opted for a coffee cream roulade with a hazelnut praline filling.

She said: “At Christmas, hazelnut pralines always go first in our house, so I’ve tried to based the flavours on that really.”

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The tent was filled with nervous laughter as the bakers began the dreaded roll, but while Manon’s roulade cracked and Briony’s leaked filling, Karen’s held its shape.

It was not, however, a hit with the judges.

Prue Leith pointed out that the soft meringue had “collapsed” and Paul Hollywood said: “It looks pretty sad. I think your meringue’s slightly underdone, your outside is the only crispy bit in there. Everything else is soft and marshmallowy.”

For the technical challenge, the contestants were asked to serve a raspberry blancmange with 12 identical langues de chat biscuits.

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As the bakers struggled with the edited recipe, Karen said: “Does it say how long? No, it just says ‘bake.’ Bake ‘til Christmas, bake ‘til tomorrow morning? Thanks Prue.”

She placed seventh out of eight bakers. Prue said of her bake: “You didn’t get the raspberry through well enough and the biscuits are undercooked.”

Speaking after the results, Karen said: “I’m really disappointed with the result, do you want me to elaborate?”

Karen seemed to have lost her usual cheery disposition as she approached the week’s showstopper: a dessert of each contestant’s choosing, encased in a chocolate globe, which would then be melted with hot sauce to reveal the dessert inside.More councils could ‘go under’ like Northamptonshire, warns Wakefield leader