The sponge has risen, the icing is set and now it is time to put the cherry on top: the remaining three bakers in the Great British Bake Off go head to head in a tense finale on Wednesday night.
With GBBO, as it is affectionately known to those who know the value of a good meringue, moving to Channel 4 in 2018 after a year’s hiatus, there are likely to be emotional scenes in the final episode to be broadcast on the BBC.
The final will see PE teacher Candice Brown, jet engine engineer Andrew Smyth and garden designer Jane Beedle attempt to wow judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood for the last time in the royal-themed final.
Brown, 31, is favourite to win after impressing the judges sufficiently to be crowned star baker on three occasions. The secondary school teacher from Bedfordshire grew up in her parents’ pubs, an experience that paid off in week two when she created a gingerbread pub, complete with sticky ginger carpet and miniature pool table.
But she will have to see off stiff competition from Smyth, a 25-year-old aerospace engineer from Northern Ireland, who has won star baker twice. The Cambridge graduate impressed GBBO fans with his creations, which have included a structure of interlinking cog-shaped pies, a 3D gingerbread recreation of his time punting down the river Cam and ice-cream mousse cakes in dessert week. Smyth caused some smiles in Tudor week by creating an undeniably phallic caramel jousting pole for his rotund knight on horseback decoration.
Fans have also not written off Beedle. The 61-year-old has proved to be an accomplished baker, even if Hollywood suggested in botanical week that her three-tier cake with its floral chocolate collar looked like colourful mashed potato.
Beedle’s passion for baking has been passed down the generations: her grandfather owned a bakery in Hastings and her dad was a keen baker. She won star baker in the first week but has not managed to repeat the feat before the final.
But the uncertainty about Bake Off’s future may somewhat over shadow its final BBC episode, said PR expert Mark Borkowski. “If it wasn’t the last one, I think the final would be a bit underwhelming,” he said. “While Nadia was a fantastic winner and a great icon for diversity, they haven’t got a real star out of the final episode. The last episode will be quite poignant but it will slightly steal the thunder from the winner.”
He also warned Bake Off lovers that Channel 4’s offering would, by necessity, be much more commercial. It emerged on Sunday that the broadcaster is to start bids to sponsor the show at up to £8m.
Channel 4 agreed a £25m a year deal with the show’s creator, Love Productions, but will have to find new presenters, after Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc announced they would not be “following the dough”. Berry also said her allegiance was with the BBC, but Hollywood agreed to move to Channel 4.
“Bake off will just have to become more commercial. If it isn’t getting 4 million viewers then Channel 4 have overpaid,” he said. “I doubt that viewers will move en masse, and I think there will be a lot of dewy-eyed regret about the old days when it was on good old Aunty.”
Nonetheless, the winner of the final final can expect a serious financial windfall – with the potential for book deals and further television and radio appearances. Nadiya Hussain, who won in 2015, has arguably been Bake Off’s most successful champion. After signing a reported £1m book deal, her recipe book has sold almost 25,000 copies since its release in June. Alongside a bestselling children’s cookbook she has also secured a three-book fiction deal with Harlequin.
Hussain was also the subject of a BBC documentary, The Chronicles of Nadiya, and the corporation have recently given her a contract to make the BBC her “home” where she will work on other programmes.
Stardom has already come for some of the contestants. Selasi Gbormittah, who was eliminated in the semi-final, has spoken of his plans to open a bakery in west London and release a recipe book.
The former contestant wrote on Instagram: “This has been a massive learning curve for me, especially at times when I performed badly! … The journey is just beginning.”
