It’s time for a sugar rush as Great British Bake Off reaches the semi-final stage

Four bakers face tonight’s patisserie week challenges

Tonight's the night – it's semi-final time for the four remaining Great British Bake Off contestants and it's patisserie week, so expect lots of drama.

First they'll have to wrestle with paper-thin filo for baklava – not one but two types of which they will have to present to judge Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood.

The technical challenge tonight – the second last in this series – is schichttorte, a multi-layered rainbow cake type confection from Germany. There are 20 different coloured sponge layers in this cake, and they’re cooked under a grill; what could possibly go wrong.

Finalists Nancy Birtwhistle, Richard Burr, Luis Troyano and Chetna Makan will then give their creativity full rein when they turn their hands – and their imaginations – to entremets in the showstopper challenge. Entremets, the literal meaning of which is "between courses" in French, also describes a multi-layer mousse cake with contrasting and complimentary flavours and textural contrasts. This being Bake Off, they'll have to produce not one but two variations on this theme.

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If tonight's action inspires you to put on your pinny and get baking, here are three lovely cake recipes from Mary Berry Cooks the Perfect, her latest book, published by Dorling Kindersley (€30), which is a step-by-step manual with more than 100 sweet and savoury recipes and lots of tips and helpful photographs showing the dishes at various stages of the preparation process.

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M&S has jumped on the GBBO bandwagon, showing amazing prescience by releasing for sale its version of the complicated Kouign Amann, which was the pastry technical challenge on the show just a fortnight ago.

But, as M&S Bakery Product Developer Jenny Bateson explains, the buttery French pastry has been in development for the store for some time.

"We first saw the Kouign Amann at a specialist bakery in New York. It's taken over a year to perfect our recipe and technique. When we saw it on Bake Off we knew it would be a real hit with our customers and made sure we had it on our shelves within the week."

Packs of two Kouign Amann are in M&S now, €3.69.