Baking for the Bach: Here come the Vikings

Another week of the Bachelorette is in the books and it was much more drama free. I swear this episode was so tame it forced the producing team to be like, let's start something at the end to kick things up a notch before she sends people home.

It started with a one-on-one with Martin who showed some surprising chemistry with Michelle while racing cars around the BMW Performance Center. I think the funniest part of their conversation afterwards was when Michelle asked what his favorite part of the date was as if there was any variety and he would say "I like when we turned right really fast. The left just wasn't as fun." The buck stopped there and Martin almost sabotaged himself by unnecessarily bringing up and defending Jamie. He defends himself here by saying he's not great at sharing emotions, which I get and Michelle empathizes with too, but what that has to do with the whole Jamie thing I still don't get...

The group date was my favorite date they have ever planned on the Bach franchise. Too bad it was overshadowed by Michelle's rightful anger that none of the guys were paying attention to her. I mean cotton candy and build a bear is distracting but let's not forget why we're here. Cute moments were missed.

The second half of the date, they introduce the Bella Twins for some teddy bear fights and Michelle looks like she just ate an entire lemon while the guys fully embrace their inner beast (aka a stuffed teddy bear). The guys end the fights by cheersing to a drama free night, but little do they know. And it's great to see that Michelle doesn't shy away from calling them out for the sake of making sure the night isn't ruined.

Rick gets the next one on one date and they take a gondola up a mountain and walk through nature, sans climbing this time (lucky him). There are convenient bits of romantic wishes in a wishes box, but the most poignant one is the one that pushes Rick to share about his father taking his life. From his share of his harrowing experience to the other date conversations, he seems to say all the right things, but actually sincerely mean them. Time will tell.

And then we get to the actual drama of the episode when Chris decides to make a speech at the cocktail party defending Michelle's honor and chastising the other men for doing what he also did on the group date in the weirdest and most uncomfortable way. He also calls out Nayte when talking to Michelle in private for his cocky attitude when it comes to roses and then turns around and acts cocky about getting a rose. And I must point out that when Michelle addresses Nayte he nods in a blind rage waiting to Hulk out when they're done instead of listening to her, yet she doesn't seem bothered by that.

The pre-rose cocktails end with Nayte calling Chris a dweeb (me when trying to smack talk). But this week is a new week where all new ridiculous drama awaits.

The episode promises, among other things, a "real Viking challenges to showcase their strength and bravery" and while I'm all for that, my showcase is more of the baking variety with sfogliatelle "viking horns" in the mix.

Now what I learned while making these is that you really need a pasta machine to get the dough nice and thin so the layers pop in a nice and flakey way, but the doughier version I got from rolling them out with a wine bottle when I was too lazy to find my rolling pin came out just as delicious, albeit somewhat different.

Either way, this recipe is definitely one I will be trying again with the proper tools and I will still be holding them up to my head pretending to be a viking before I eat them in the meantime. Looking forward to seeing who wins Michelle's viking wars!