Bake Off: The Professionals

Ellie Taylor and Liam Charles welcome a new batch of pastry chefs to the tent and challenge them to create 36 individual opéra aux fruit and one chocolate amenity in three hours. For their showpiece, the teams must transform a classic banoffee pie into a fine-dining experience with edible sculptures. Benoit Blin and Cherish Finden judge.

The five remaining teams throw their experience out the window when they make 24 identical re-imagined tarts. They must tap into their creative sides when asked to serve 24 peach melbas in never-before-seen ways. In the second challenge, the teams create a pièce montée featuring 160 individual choux buns with a `Mad Science" theme.

In the first of the challenges in chocolate week, Ellie Taylor and Liam Charles task the four remaining teams with making 24 chocolate-domed figurines and 24 desserts. For the showpiece challenge, the teams must create 48 chocolate bars, presented within a dramatic chocolate showpiece inspired by archaeology and featuring a moving part. Judges Benoit Blin and Cherish Finden are looking for a tall, beautiful and technically precise creation that is good enough to win a team a spot in the next stage of the competition.

Liam Charles and Ellie Taylor challenge six new teams to produce 36 perfect Prinsesstårta alongside a chocolate amenity with no recipe to help them. The contestants then transform a classic dessert into a fine-dining experience, taking the humble bread and butter pudding and turning it into a towering, edible, showpiece sculpture.

In the first challenge, the remaining teams are tasked with creating 24 reimagined millefeuille and 24 pavlovas in never-before-seen ways. The showpiece display must feature two batches of 24 modern religieuse, designed to look like musical icons.

The remaining four teams tackle the challenges thrown at them in Chocolate Week. They begin by making 24 fruity chocolate desserts alongside 24 desserts celebrating autumn using chocolate. In the showpiece challenge, the teams each create 48 safari-themed chocolate bars to go within a piece with a moving part.

The best three teams from each set of heats are challenged to create a plated dessert for each of the judges that celebrates herbs and spices with no recipe, and only the ingredients laid before them. In a never-before-seen challenge, the teams must create a showpiece adorned with petit-fours following the theme of Take Flight, that hangs from the ceiling.

In the quarter final, the five remaining teams create 24 savoury puff pastries and three sharing-sized brioche feuilletée in just three and a half hours. The second challenge combines sugar and chocolate work and must fit the theme of `A Life of Amphibians and Reptiles", the teams have five hours to create 30 individual desserts to incorporate into their final showpiece.

In a series first, guest judge Philip Khoury, Harrods' head pastry chef, surprises the semi-finalists and sets their first challenge - his signature Dawn of a New Day dessert. In the second challenge the teams must create a miniature village scene complete with enough bûche entremet and edible elements to serve 40 guests.

In the first challenge of the final, the teams put all their passion and expertise into creating a dessert trolley adorned with a chiffon pie, a decadent jelly and a baked Alaska. For the last ever challenge, the finalists are given seven hours to create a banquet display reflecting the opulence of the 1920s with enough desserts to feed 80 people.