'Bake Off' biscuit structures crumble in showstopper disaster

It's one of the challenges that The Great British Bake Off has become known for, but biscuit week's building showstopper ended in disaster for many of this year's contestants with a near-impossible task.

Previous years have seen edible structures including a gingerbread colosseum take centre stage, but in possibly the most difficult task yet, the bakers had to make a favourite childhood toy... out of biscuit.

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Unsurprisingly, the ambitious ideas that many of the bakers came to the tent with ended up in a pile of crumbs as reality failed to live up to expectation.

Jairzeno, who had aimed to make a biscuit boat, summed it up by commenting: "It's more like a shipwreck than a ship."

He was in good company, though, as many of the competitors struggled and the challenge even left the show's most experienced baker, Maggie, in tears.

Met Police detective Amanda branded her rocking horse a "complete disaster" as she had to present it to judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood as a heap of broken biscuit pieces after the whole thing fell apart.

Leith told her: "The saddle is beautiful, the tail, the head - it must have been heartbreaking to see the thing collapse."

But Hollywood was much less sympathetic as he said of her choice of biscuit: "I would never in a million years have chosen that biscuit to make this, it's so delicate."

The disaster would have struck a chord with some of the show's previous stars, as Edd Kimber and Paul Jagger recently called for a return to achievable challenges.

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However, not everyone fell apart under the pressure - George presented a motorised moving biscuit plane, Chigs baked a playable pool table, Jurgen's windmill drew admiration from the judges and Giuseppe made what Hollywood called a "properly engineered" chequers board.

Meanwhile, car maker Lizzie, who had presented a paint-your-own biscuit car, told Hollywood: "Well with that painting skills, you could get a job in our factory if it all goes wrong."

Watch: Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith decide who is more intimidating