Noel Fielding’s ‘Great British Baking Show’ Antics Finally Go Too Far When He Ruins Nelly’s Caramel

Well, it finally happened: Noel Fielding‘s hilarious Great British Baking Show antics actually precipitated culinary catastrophe. Midway through The Great British Baking Show Season 12 Episode 4 “Caramel Week” on Netflix, Noel asks Slovakian-born baker Nelly Ghaffar if the pastry dough left on her counter is leftover. When she confirms that it is, he immediately begins to play with it. Then, disaster strikes. Noel smashes a large glass measuring cup holding the last bit of caramel Nelly needs to finish her Technical Challenge.

Once more, this new season of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix is bringing the drama, the comedy, and the chaos!

**Spoilers for The Great British Baking Show Season 12 Episode 4 “Caramel Week,” now streaming on Netflix**

Over the past eight seasons, Noel Fielding has established himself as one of the most delightful parts of The Great British Baking Show. The British comic, actor, and host consistently lights up the tent with his silly humor and eye-catching fashions. However, if there’s one nitpick we’ve had with Noel over the years it’s that sometimes his antics seem to hinder the bakers’ abilities to do their jobs. Consider the time he wastes bantering with the bakers or that time he literally blocked someone’s oven as a gag. So there was always a latent worry that perhaps at some point, Noel’s bits could sabotage an important bake.

The mood in the Bake Off tent was especially silly this week, with Andy Ryan slipping in a Willy Wonka/wanker pun, Prue Leith cheekily suggesting to Mike Wilkins that he needed to work on his bulge, and Nelly laughing that she, like her caramel biscuits, looked like Star Trek creatures. And don’t even get me started on last week’s Star Baker Dylan Bachelet entering the tent looking like a hipster Rembrandt, wearing an oversized cap, and moaning he had a nightmare he was on The Great British Baking Show. “You are,” Noel laughed. “That wasn’t a nightmare.”

So when the Technical Challenge came around — wherein Prue Leith asked the bakers to produce a Pear Tart Tartin with Caramel Walnut Ice Cream — it wasn’t shocking to see Noel in peak playful mode. Grooving with the tent’s goofy mood, Noel began playing with Nelly’s left over pastry and Andy immediately joined. After Noel successfully threw the ball of dough into Andy’s hat, he grabbed a rolling pin off Nelly’s bench to use as a bat for the return. With a single swing, everything went awry, though. Glass shattered on the floor, followed by gasps rippling through the tent.

“You didn’t need that?” A mortified Noel asks.

“Yes, I did,” Nelly says.

“What are we going to do?” Noel says. “Do we have time to make some more?”

A confident Nelly says, “Yes, we do.” Thank goodness!

While other bakers might have crumbled under the stress, the ebullient Nelly took the situation in stride. “It’s all good,” she says. “If I’m gonna go home, he will drive me home in posh car.”

However, that didn’t mean all was necessarily well or that Noel was off the hook. As Nelly went to work pulling together more caramel in the limited time remaining, Noel was dispatched to clean up. The contrite comedian was next seen vacuuming up the glass and caramel that he had ruined. In an adorable beat, he sheepishly looks up at Nelly, but the baker is too focused to notice.

Eventually, Nelly ranked sixth out of nine remaining bakers in the Technical and she survived the week. So Noel’s actions didn’t cause a catastrophe. In fact, they sparked quite a bit of comedy. And that levity is beginning to become one of my favorite themes of this season of The Great British Baking Show. The show’s earliest episodes might have been marred by the drama of illness and fainting, but now humor seems to reign supreme.

I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much watching this show, which is a testament to the chemistry of the current cast and the enduring comic charms of one Noel Fielding.

Hopefully Noel will find inventive new ways to keep the kooky comedy alive without risking the bakers’ ingredients.