The Great British Baking Show is so iconic now, the contestants have started paying homage to past bakes.
Series 16 contender Iain Ross tasked himself with redeeming fellow Belfast native Iain Watters from the dustbin-gate of history, choosing to recreate the series five baked Alaska that Watters threw out rather than present to the judges after his ice cream was prematurely removed from the freezer by fellow baker Diana Beard.
Recreate it bin and all, that is.
As 2025 Iain noted, it didn't go "incredibly well," judge Paul Hollywood not liking his flavors (apparently espresso and dark chocolate can go wrong, who knew?).
But the 29-year-old software engineer's soot-black vacherin glacé showstopper looked uncannily like, as Prue Leith put it, "a grubby bin that's been kicked around," and—taken into account with the well-risen raspberry soufflés that won him first in the technical—Iain's creation was deemed stylish and substantial enough for a place in the following week's quarterfinal.
Will this show's delights never cease!?
Judging by the enduring charm of the now 15-year-old series—which has survived mini scandals, a channel change, having dueling names and season numbers in the U.S. and U.K., and more seeming recipes for disaster—the answer is no.
While the formula has been tweaked here and there over time, the basic ingredients remain the same: Assemble 12 or 13 (a baker's dozen, FTW) amateur bakers from the United Kingdom (who can be from anywhere, originally, but are residents of England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland), put them in a cheery white tent filled with pastel appliances and may the most consistently dazzling contestant who manages to stay cool under pressure (and 35-degree Celsius temps) win.
But the GBBS team has found ways to mix it up, from the introduction of new theme weeks to increasingly ribald commentary from hosts Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond. And just when you thought you'd seen everything, Paul unveiled a left-handed handshake for series 16 finalist Jasmine Mitchell.
"It's like half," the still-delighted baker said, erupting with relieved laughter. Which, by now, is a familiar sound in the tent.
Though every once in awhile an elimination has left a bad taste in the internet's mouth, what still separates this reality-competition show from the rest is the way these compatriots applaud each other when a bake goes well, hug when it all goes wrong and throw up their hands in good-natured self-deprecation when their own sponge turns claggy or dough is underproofed.
And those comfy-cozy vibes are always worth the calories.
Before we see which series 16 finalist has been crowned the starriest baker of them all, we've got a combination of sweet and tart secrets about The Great British Baking Show that will take you from amateur to expert:
Signature Bake
If you're in the U.K. you're watching The Great British Bake Off, which is what the contestants call it. But in the United States, it's presented as The Great British Baking Show. Why?
Well, if the term "bake off" sounds a bit nostalgically familiar to you, perhaps because of a certain little roly-poly chef with a pokable belly, that's why. Pillsbury trademarked the term in the U.S. after its nationwide contest—started in 1949 (the company's 80th anniversary)—for the best amateur recipe using its brand-name flour became the annual Pillsbury Bake-Off®.
Hence, that part of the name was already taken on these shores.
A Moveable Feast
The famous Bake Off tent is located in Berkshire's Welford Park, in the southeast of England.
It takes 12 to 13 weeks to film a 10-episode season, and unlike most reality shows where everyone lives together in some capacity, the competitors go home to their normal lives during the week. So, those two-day rounds—signature and technical challenges on Saturday and showstoppers the next day—really are two-day, all-day rounds.
"You haven't really got a life other than Bake Off. No social life," season four winner Frances Quinn told Cosmopolitan UK in 2019. "That was the most stressful time. We had to get a train down on the Friday and we'd have a wake up call at 5 a.m., we'd be in the tent at 7 a.m. We'd wrap filming at about 8 p.m. and then it would be the same again the next day. I'd get back at about midnight on the Sunday. It's not just a two-hour bake with a few buttercups."
They stay in town on Saturday nights, of course, but even going back and forth to the hotel on the shuttle was stressful, Frances recalled: "It was like going towards an exam, and then on the way back, some people had done really well in the exam and some people hadn't done so well and it was the next day when you know someone is going home. It was tricky trying to deal with everyone's different emotions."
Bread Ringers?
When the show says these are the best amateur bakers in all of the U.K., they mean it—or they're at least the most determined.
"It's a long application form. I think it's designed to put some people off," season four semifinalist Beca Lyne-Pirkis told BBC News. "It asks you about everything you have done, good and bad. It's designed to get information about your character, stories, mishaps and successes."
The rules state that, in addition to not being a professional chef or baker, contestants can't have worked in that field for at least 10 years.
"Imagine my surprise when I received a phone call, not 24 hours after I had pressed send on the original email!" season five's Jordan Cox wrote on his blog. The phone interview lasted about an hour, and "we discussed my baking, hobbies, and work life. They even tested my baking skills, asking me to describe how to make a few baking staples off the top of my head."
Christine Wallace of season four recalled to BBC News that, at her first audition, "we had to [make] a sweet cake and a savory bake. I did a very elaborate chocolate cake with a raspberry mousse heart and a chocolate ganache—and a quiche with smoked salmon and asparagus."
And then there are more auditions. "We are honor-bound to keep the details a secret," said Christina's fellow competitor Glen Crosby, "but in one audition we had to cook a specific recipe, under timed conditions with people asking us questions about what we were doing."
Dust Yourself Off and Bake Again
Just as with The Voice or So You Think You Can Dance, if this isn't your season, maybe the next one will be.
Season five winner Nancy Birtwhistle told BBC News that she had tried and failed to make it onto the show just the previous year. "Undeterred, I continued to read and learn and applied again for Series 5," she shared, "and this time I was successful in 'The Tent' ahead of 16,000 other applicants."
Recalling how she told producers about waking up in the middle of the night thinking about brioche, season four finalist Ruby Tandoh wrote in a 2025 New Yorker essay, "The producers are used to this—they get people who want the thing so badly that they apply seven, eight, nine times."
Seeing Double
While it's no secret that each episode takes place over the course of two days, the contestants still wear the same outfits on both days.
Asked about that seemingly odd requirement, season seven finalist Jane Beedle explained it was for continuity, just in case.
"The show is filmed in the same order it's shown on screen," she told the Mirror in 2019, "and they never re-shoot a bake but sometimes they might want to redo an interview from the day before, so they want you to be in the same clothes for that."
Frances told Cosmo UK, "They just have to get so much footage for an hour show. You're being interviewed about eight times a day, just so they've got every type of answer and every type of question has been asked. They don't want to miss a thing."
About wearing the same clothes two days in a row, she said, "Luckily they change the aprons so we don't look like a Jackson Pollock painting by the end of it. I think layers [help], but even then you still have to wear what you had on, on top. Difficult. And everyone was always like 'Did you buy two of everything?' and I was like 'No, you're spending so much money on butter and eggs...'"
Who Pays for the Ingredients
While the GBBS larder is stocked with all the butter, flour, eggs, chocolate, etc. that any baker might need, only so much of their expenses are covered for practicing at home or if they want to bring in outside items.
"It's funny the amount of ingredients I used to have in my kitchen," Frances recalled of preparing her recipes. "People would come in and I'd just got used to seeing that amount of butter and using so many eggs. Me and my fridge needed a detox after the show."
And while some contestants brought honey cultivated from their own bees and special spice mixes, some items were much more basic. "Even bananas," Frances said, "if you need the really ripe ones if you're making a banoffee pie and the ones they got in from the online order were green. You have to take it to the next level."
Jane told the Mirror she couldn't remember how much, exactly, the show gave them for expenses, but "once you're in the tent they provide everything you need, all the ingredients and equipment."
"If you want to go over the budget you can," she added, "you can go mental, but that's your choice and of course you pay for that yourself."
The Real Technical Challenges
The crew checks the ovens every day before the bakers arrive by test-baking a dozen cakes.
"We mark each one, then get a runner to stand at each station with their cake mix so we can be sure they've all gone into the oven at the same time and can be properly tested," food researcher Georgia May, one of the show's secret weapons who's basically in charge of making sure there are zero problems with the ingredients or equipment, told The Observer in 2014. "We just have to be certain we're fair."
She continued, "We've got to make sure the contestants are happy. They can specify what brand of a product they want, we have to get it and then de-brand it for screen."
Another staffer is stationed at a nearby supermarket each morning, ready to run in and grab any necessary last-minute items. "Sometimes [the bakers will] be awake in the middle of the night and they'll have decided that, oh, figs will be the thing that will make their bake."
Or, May added, "I remember a few series back, someone wanted freeze-dried raspberries so I had to pick them out of a box of Special K one by one."
And no wonder Frances was so stressed out.
"Last year Frances Quinn had a showstopper that required 150 ingredients," May recalled. "It filled the whole of that table. [Another time] we did a chocolate showstopper and that alone used 50 kilos of the stuff."
Scoring Marks
How do the judges keep track of what they think about every bake, especially in the early rounds when there's 12 of everything?
"You don't see this, but we actually score everybody, which is helpful to us," Prue Leith told E! News in 2022, noting that she and fellow judge Paul Hollywood arrive at their scores separately but are rarely more than a point apart. "If we get to the stage, and we often do, where it seems to all come down to the Showstopper and there's a disagreement where I think somebody is slightly better than the other, we'll go back and look at how they did the day before."
The Signature bakes get a score between 1 and 10, Prue shared, and they "just don't tell the bakers about it."
And when it comes to who leaves the tent on any given week, contestants are often only as good as their last Signature, Technical and Showstopper. But, Prue explained, "If we're still stuck and we're still genuinely unable to choose somebody and we think, ‘This is crazy, these two people are absolutely equal,' we will go back and look at how they've done up until then in the competition, which we normally don't do."
Waste Not, Want Not
If you've ever fretted watching the judges pop one of a dozen canapés into their mouths or eat a few forkfuls of cake and move on, worry no more. All that bread and pastry does not go to waste.
"The crew eats all the leftovers," Jane told the Mirror. "We get some brought to us in the green room so we can taste each others bakes, but it's only slithers." However, "If there was loads of your bake left then you'd know it was awful."
Mary Berry, Quite Contrary
Are you surprised to learn Mary Berry is kind of a baller?
The now-nonagenarian baking maven and O.G. GBBS judge has more than 75 books to her name and a mindboggling number of TV credits. And she had a droll experience clubbing in Ibiza when she was in her 70s.
In 2006, she found herself headed to Pacha on the island infamous for its debauched party scene. "They stamp you as you go in, and you can see the steam coming out as you go up the steps," the grandmother of five told the Daily Telegraph. "It was like a rabbit warren: lots of little rooms and in every room there was music, there were bars, there were strange drinks, there were people smoking or sitting on the floor."
"There was every type of clothing you could imagine: miniskirts; some of them with hardly anything on," Mary recalled. "The girls all hung together inside. We didn't want to miss a trick."
It was just a slight descent then, really, to the underworld of cooking meth. "It's shocking! Then you get into it and you think, 'Have I seen episode four or five?' You get hooked," she recalled binge-watching Breaking Bad on set of The Great British Bake Off. "It's better than motor racing, which Paul [Hunnings, her husband] watches—though I'd prefer Downton Abbey."
Setting the Tone
Frances remembered plucky presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc being the absolute best, telling Cosmo UK, "I always said that Mel was amazing at helping you clean your work surface down. You used to have to put out Sue-friendly bowls because she would just go around eating stuff off your work bench and you'd have to be like 'no Sue, I need that.' They're genuinely as lovely as they come across. You just wanted to have more banter with them but you have to concentrate on your caramel not burning."
A Rough Channel Crossing
Perhaps the most bitter moment in Bake Off history was its jump from the BBC to Channel 4 in September 2016, which resulted in the exits of Mary, Sue and Mel. The BBC did raise the usual $410,000 per-hour licensing fee to $685,000 an hour, for 30 hours, to keep what had been its most-watched show of 2015. But Channel 4 outbid its fellow public broadcaster, offering $833,000 an hour, or almost $25 million for the whole batch.
But though Channel 4 said it planned to keep the show intact, judge Paul Hollywood was the only original cast member who stayed with it.
Mel and Sue said they were leaving the day after the new deal was announced, stating they were "shocked and saddened" by the move, which they had made it clear they did not want.
Nine days later, Mary announced that her loyalty lied with the BBC and she wouldn't be making the move, either. "What a privilege and honor it has been to be part of seven years of magic in a tent…The Bake Off family, Paul, Mel and Sue, have given me so much joy and laughter," said the busy octogenarian, whose shows since have included Britain's Best Home Cook, A Berry Royal Christmas (featuring Kate Middleton and Prince William) and Mary Berry's Simple Comforts.
Neither Bitter Nor Burnt
Paul said that he was happy to be continuing on as a judge with the show.
Awkwardly, season seven with the original cast was still about to premiere, as were two Christmas specials—but all were a smashing success. The season finale was the most-watched TV show in the U.K. in all of 2016, with 15.9 million tuning in. A year later, 7.7 million watched the season eight finale on Channel 4—but 9.2 million watched the season 11 finale and a five-minute peak of 10.2 million was the channel's biggest-ever overnight audience, proof that there was still enough heat for numbers to rise.
"We'll always be mates," Paul said of Mary on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2016 after the split. "I was with her last weekend, we had such a giggle." Asked to confirm that his decision hadn't affected their relationship, he replied with a smile, "Why would it? How could it?...No, no, no, she'll always be my TV mother, as well as Mel and Sue will be my sisters. We are like a dysfunctional family."
And he and Mary did talk while they were making their respective choices, Paul shared. "I think ultimately it was our own decisions [to stay or go]. We're all at different points in our own careers." He said that Mary told him, when he told her he'd be staying, that "if I were your age I'd do the same thing."
If We Are Good at Something, Pass It On
The hunt to replace Mary was a big freakin' deal, with bookmakers taking bets on the names that were bandied about, including Nigella Lawson and season six winner Nadiya Hussain.
Ultimately it was boldly accessorized restaurateur Prue Leith who joined Paul at the judges table, while The Mighty Boosh funnyman Noel Fielding and writer-comedian-activist Sandi Toksvig were tapped as the new presenters.
Days before the March 16, 2017, announcement, Prue called the rumors that she was in the running "complete nonsense," but also that "there's not a cook in the country who doesn't want to do that job."
She told Jonathan Ross in 2018, one season under her belt, that she actually didn't feel that much pressure at first because she didn't fully realize what a national treasure the show had become: "I just thought, well, yeah, it'll be fun to do that—and then, when I went to have an audition, and then another audition, and meet this guy [gesturing to Paul], then I wanted to do it!"
Putting her technical know-how on the line, she baked a Gugelhupf cake (a series five signature) to bring to her second audition—but Prue said her husband took a look at it and advised, "That'll never get past Paul Hollywood." So she didn't bring it!
Technically Challenged
One of Prue's less exquisite moments: Accidentally tweeting out the season eight winner six hours before the 2017 finale aired, a faux pas Noel and Sandi duly made fun of the following season.
"Do you know, I think that was one of the worst half an hours, that first half an hour when I realized what I'd done, which was the most idiotic thing in the world," Prue lamented afterward on This Morning. She was in Bhutan at the time and, seeing a reminder to congratulate the winner, she flubbed the time change and sent her congrats to Sophie Faldo zinging into the Twitterverse way ahead of schedule.
She realized fairly instantly what she'd done, "and then I went into a kind of panic mode where I couldn't work my phone. I did not know how to delete it quickly, and I couldn't think. And in the end, I just rang my trusty [assistant]."
Who had already deleted it, like a champ, but, Prue added, "that was 89 seconds after I'd done it, too late."
Mainly feeling terrible about taking any attention away from the winner, she emailed Sophie, who replied, "'Don't be silly, it's fine.'"
Everybody was actually really nice about it, Prue shared, and she got a lot of understanding messages, including from some very famous people who assured her, "I could've done that."
Pure Comfort Food
Season 11 was baked in half the time and at double the temperature.
To safely pull off a recognizable GBBS season during pandemic lockdown in 2020, the contestants and 130 crew members were relegated to a bubble at the Down Hall Hotel & Spa in Essex for six weeks.
"We drew up this whopping list of protocols in conjunction with our medics and health and safety officers," executive producer Richard McKerrow explained to the Telegraph. "It's quite a piece of work—not as big as the Bible but not far off. Everyone had to quarantine for nine days, have two COVID tests and have food delivered to their doors."
Then, he continued, "They had a deep-cleaned rental car delivered to their house five days in advance, then travelled to the bio-bubble without stopping on the way. They stayed in their room for 24 hours while a third COVID test was done. Only then were they in and sealed off."
The result: A season that looked rather normal, minus the acknowledgment of the bubble—and the finale that didn't include the finalists' families or the previously cast-off contestants.
As Love Productions creative director Kieran Smith told The Observer, "The whole point of the bubble [was] being able to be close to each other or pat people on the back, or it wouldn't be Bake Off."
Seriously, if there's no hope for a Paul Hollywood handshake for a job exceptionally well done, why even show up?
Plenty of Room at the Inn
"The next question was, how do we move people? We have bakers who had children," Smith said. "There was the whole legal and compliance issue. The filming was sort of the easy part."
Partners and kids, if a contestant was a primary caretaker, and even pets were welcome if they were willing to abide by the strict protocols.
Single dad Marc Elliott, a sculptor from Cornwall, was joined by his daughters, while single mom Hermine Dossou, who at the time was studying accounting, was accompanied by son Stephen.
Close Shaves
Even inside the bubble, there was at least one coronavirus scare that threatened to halt production. "Somebody spoke to our medical team because they were showing symptoms that could have been COVID," Smith told Radio Times in September.
"We had very strict protocols about what to do. They were isolated immediately, as was anyone who had been in close contact with them. They were tested immediately. We paused filming for an afternoon. The test came back negative and we resumed filming the next day."
The creative director added, "We were lucky, but it felt it like we would need to be extremely unlucky for it to be positive."
Getting a Rise Out of the Bakers
Location, of course, wasn't the only thing different about season 11. While Sandi and Noel, who already had a cult following from his irreverent work as half of The Mighty Boosh, brought more ribald humor to the tent, the addition of Alice in Wonderland actor Matt Lucas as Noel's partner sent the cheek quotient skyrocketing.
And just in time, according to critics who felt that the formula had become a bit bland after 10 seasons.
"Matt and Noel were great to be with in the tent, it was always fun," recalled season 11 winner Peter Sawkins. "They were always doing random silly things that would never cross my mind. They kept it very light and would also give really good reassurance in a controlled and kind way, when they knew you wanted a bit of warmth and support, along with the mad stuff."
While quarantined in the bubble, Matt hosted a bingo night for the bakers, who passed a lot of the time watching movies and playing soccer.
"He'd been shielding prior to coming in so for him it was quite liberating," Smith told The Observer of their new presenter. "It was a good atmosphere on set. People had been staying in their homes, the majority of them loved it… it was an opportunity to be normal. We had fun. It was a long time but it had a special atmosphere to it this year. We thought we were in the safest place in England by the time we were a week in and no one was showing signs."
Game of Scones
Second place, meanwhile, was kinda on fire for season 11 runner-up Laura Adlington. She revealed on the series' wrap-up show, An Extra Slice, that she received a DM of encouragement from none other than "Emilia Clarke, mother of dragons from Game of Thrones." The actress told her, "'Laura, me and my friends love you. Thanks for brightening up our lockdown. We hope you win.'"
Laura said, "I think she called me a 'baking queen.' So my life is now complete, quite frankly. Friends with Matt Lucas and Emilia Clarke. Doesn't get better than that, does it?"
Unpacking Bingate
The moment in 2014 when Iain Watters chucked the components of his baked Alaska into the rubbish bin because the ice cream had gone soupy, and therefore he had nothing to show the judges, resulting in his elimination, was so shocking, it immediately became…bingate!
"For any Americans wondering why #justiceforiain is trending, a man on the telly made a cake and threw it in the bin," tweeted one rapt fan when the show was airing on Aug. 27, 2014. "Best TV in the world."
Fellow contestant Diana Beard had taken Iain's ice cream out of the freezer—but she insisted it had only been for about 40 seconds before he went to get it. That didn't keep the accusations of sabotage and other vitriol from being hurled at the 69-year-old. "I'm glad Mary's not on twitter this would upset her.. #enoughnow," Paul tweeted. Added Sue, "Iain's Alaska was out of the freezer for 40 secs. That's it. No sabotage. 40 secs of normal temp would NOT be enough to reduce it to liquid."
When Diana left the show the following week due to an illness, the BBC was compelled to insist that no one had sabotaged anything and that her exit had nothing to do with Iain's ice cream.
"I feel bad for Diana because she's had quite a mauling on Twitter and I don't like all the nasty comments," Iain told The Guardian a day after Diana's departure was revealed. "I think it's a bit unfair and I do think they could have edited the episode a bit better."
He also insisted his ice cream was out of the freezer for awhile.
"I've never asked her why she did it," he said. "The Bake Off told me it was out of the fridge for only a minute but I think it had to be a lot longer than a minute to melt as much as that."
They were down to three freezers from five after two malfunctioned, he recalled of that June day, and he had stashed his dessert in a different one than he'd used that morning.
"I had no reason to believe it would get taken out by anyone," the construction engineer continued. "I was outraged but I was more frustrated because I had been so focused the last hour and I had all the components made and I was frustrated that it had been taken out. It would not have been melted and ruined if it hadn't been removed from the freezer."
A lot of his fellow bakers felt that no one should've been eliminated, he said, since what happened wasn't his fault—but, as Paul pointed out, he didn't present anything at the end of the day.
Still, "I don't regret throwing it in the bin," Iain declared. "I would do it again. I didn't want to serve something in that state. I'm not a complete perfectionist but I'm someone who likes things to turn out as I intended them to."
The Backlash Is Real
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Bake Off Twitter (now X) has always been intense. And when the wrong contestant goes home in the eyes of the people, the angst is real.
In season 10 it was the inexplicable elimination of Dan Chambers instead of Jamie Finn in week one that burned, and then the ouster of Hermine over Laura in the semifinal had the Internet fuming.
"After a full night's sleep and morning to contemplate things, Hermine going home is still the biggest scandal of 2020," tweeted one outraged viewer. "Look at that Fu**ing cake she made, Laura couldn't make that if she snorted Mary Berry's ashes off Matt Lucas' head. #bakeoff #2020 #GBBO."
Rising Above
Season three winner John Whaite suffered a cut to the hand from his food processor blade and needed to leave the tent, but was allowed to return and he stormed back to win.
Which, ultimately, was a bittersweet victory.
"Some days I'd wish I had never been on the show, because in reality, it totally derailed me from a steady lifepath," John recalled in a 2019 essay in The Telegraph. For a year, the former law student was in demand as a public figure, prompting him to quit his job at the Royal Bank of Scotland. But then interest trailed off, John explained, leaving him adrift. He started drinking and became depressed, "waiting by the phone like an anxious 1980s teenager urging their crush to call."
Recalling how he had no guidance about navigating fame, he continued, "perhaps in the wake of reality TV star meltdowns and suicides, there should be a serious reform of the way contributors are prepared for, and guided through, their post-show life. But I don't think it would have made an ounce of difference even if they had. Addiction to the razzle dazzle came naturally to the youthful me."
John has since earned his Diplôme de Pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu and released several cookbooks, and he ran his own cooking school, John Whaite Kitchen, until 2021.
He also made a brief sojourn to OnlyFans in 2025, but quit that to focus on his companies, Ruff Puff Bakehouse and Ruff Puff Brownies, founded with his husband, Paul Atkins.
Fellow Bakers Forever
These bakers really do stay friends. Years after their time in the tent together, season five alums including winner Nancy, Richard Burr, Claire Goodwin and Chetna Makan all attended Martha Collison's 2019 wedding. Better yet, they brought show-stopping cakes! They were joined by Kate Henry, Enwezor Nzegwu and... Diana and Iain, together again!
While the show airs Tuesdays on Channel 4 in the U.K., in the U.S. new episdodes drop Fridays on Netflix, if you want to keep your ice cream in the freezer till then.