Squeeeeeeee! It’s back again for 2025! Now in its sixteenth series I’m every inch as excited about it as I was all those years ago when Edd Kimber won the very first series.
Every year I start off thinking I will do a little foodie chatter post about the Bake Off each week, throwing in some baking tips and recipes where I can. But every year I realise that I just don’t have the time and my posts fall by the wayside a few weeks in.
Will this year be any different? Only time will tell but in the meantime, let’s get down to a reflection on week one: CAKE WEEK.
**** SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of the outcomes of each of the challenges, this week’s star baker and the first of The Class of 2025 to go home. Please don’t read on if you have yet to watch the cake week episode and don’t want to know the outcome! ****
THAT OPENING SEQUENCE, THOUGH 🙂
Before I get down to this week’s baking challenges, I think we just need to take a moment to admire how utterly magnificent Prue looked as David Attenborough in the opening skit. I mean, props to the make-up and wardrobe teams, right?!
LET THE BAKING COMMENCE
With the japes of the Jurassic Park-esque opening sequence over, we got our first look at The Class of 2025. Six lads and six lasses from all over the UK and spanning a range of professions from hairdressing to fitness coaching and software engineering to wedding dress design.
One to catch my eye when reading the biographies that were released ahead of the new series was Hassan. As a chemistry graduate, I thought his scientific background would be a massive strength – much like it was for Rahul back in series nine (yes, it really was all that time ago!)
I also wondered if Pui Man (a wedding dress designer) might treat us to some of the creative masterpieces produced by Frances Quinn (a clothes designer), the winner of series four.
Anyhoo, on to the baking and the first of this week’s cake challenges: the signature…
THE SIGNATURE BAKE: SWISS ROLL
The signature bake is the one where the bakers get to show us their favourite flavour profiles, their creative flair and their style of baking – their baking personality, if you will.
The cake set by the judges for CAKE WEEK 2025 was a classic teatime treat (well it was in my household while growing up) – the Swiss roll. Bake Off Geeks (hi!) will recall that the contestants in series five (the year that Nancy Birtwhistle won) also had to bake Swiss rolls for the signature challenge in cake week.
This year, the bakers were asked to create an inlay design on the outside of their Swiss roll, with filling flavours of their own choosing.
THe swiss roll flavours and designs
There was some incredible creativity on show with the inlay designs. Iain’s recreation of Queen’s University Belfast was mind-blowingly good and Jessica’s hand and flowers design was very pretty.
The flavours chosen included lemon and raspberry (Jasmine), rhubarb and custard (Toby), cherry and almond (Nadia) and chocolate, coffee and caramel (Hassan).
It didn’t take long for the drama to unfold. Toby’s crème pâtissière filling was lumpy and Hassan’s caramel seized, so both decided to start again, piling more pressure on themselves as time ticked on. And with the fillings needing to be cold before being added to the sponge, many of us could see where this was heading…
ROLL UP! ROLL UP! ROLL UP FOR THE JUDGING
This very first judging session must surely be the most nerve-wracking of all for the bakers. So how did they fare?
Iain’s Queen’s University inlay design was a huge hit with the judges (“a mighty impressive looking Swiss roll.”) Prue had been nervous that his filling would be too sweet (it was based on the Northern Irish ‘fifteens’ no-bake fridge cake) but thankfully for Iain, she concluded that it was not.
Pui Man was criticised for using too much matcha and over-filling her sponge, Toby was told the texture of his sponge was wrong – not helped by his crème pât. filling being warm still and Leighton’s sponge was deemed claggy and tough. Ouch!
FLAVOUR HITS
Putting aside the negative comments about claggy, stodgy, over-baked and cracked sponges, many of the bakers received some glowing comments for their flavour combinations.
Aaron was praised for his beautiful, balanced flavours, Jasmine got a thumbs up for the tartness of the lemon in her filling, the judges thought Nataliia’s flavours of mango and passionfruit were stunning and they loved Hassan’s coffee, caramel and chocolate fusion.
But Hassan. Oh, Hassan 😭 It’s never going to end well when the judges’ opening gambit is “…Not your best morning.”
“Flavour wise it’s stunning. But it looks like it has been dropped out of a tree.”
Double ouch!
THE TECHNICAL CHALLENGE: fondant fancies
Not something I’ve ever managed to muster up much enthusiasm for, I have to say. Which is probably just as well as you’re not exactly tripping over yourself with choice of gluten-free fondant fancies!
Anyhoo, for this year’s cake week technical challenge, the contestants were instructed to bake nine identical fondant fancies in just two hours and fifteen minutes. The twist came (of course there was a twist!) when the bakers were told that their benches contained one fondant fancy already baked, all the ingredients to make theirs…and a few more ingredients besides.
Their first task was to taste the fondant fancy and work out which of the ingredients on their bench were needed to produce nine of them. I love this twist on the technical!
WELL FANCY THAT!
It came out during the programme that Jasmine had said, while discussing what the technical challenge might be with the other contestants, that the one thing she hoped it wouldn’t be was fondant fancies. Oh 😳
Heaven only knows what she must have thought when she discovered it was. And that she was going to have to guess both the method and the ingredients!
It turns out that the flavour of the fondant fancy was raspberry and almond, which most of the bakers identified (ahem, rosewater, Pui Man. Really?!) One of the red herrings on their benches was a pot of ground almonds – because the almond flavour came solely from the almond extract also on the bench.
THE WALK OF SHAME
Judging time again and the bakers walked up to the gingham altar (many with a pained expression on their face) to present their efforts to the judges.
Interestingly, most of the bakers were criticised for using the ground almonds to make their fondant fancies. They were told that they shouldn’t have and that their inclusion inhibited the rise.
Why interesting? Because Prue’s recipe for fondant fancies on the GBBO website contains…you guessed it – ground almonds!
This wasn’t a great first technical for any of the bakers and even though it was won by Toby, Paul told the other bakers not to clap for him because his were the best of a bad bunch. Harsh. But fair, I’d say!
THE SHOWSTOPPER: landscape cakes
This is the cake challenge that really plays to the strengths of the super creative bakers and I had high hopes for Pui Man with the showstopper (she came 11th in the technical challenge so really needed to pull something out of the bag).
And with Hassan’s fondant fancies being ranked 10th in the technical, he was going to need something pretty special to save himself from eviction from the tent.
Jessika, Nataliia and Aaron all looked in pretty good shape for a return in week two, but anything can [and usually does] happen during the showstopper challenge.
HOLD ON TO YOUR BAKES!
As the showstopper challenge approached its crescendo, it became pretty clear that Iain was going to need nothing short of a miracle to save his creation. We had to watch in horror as it slipped, slopped and fell apart all over his bench after he had sculpted it.
And so it would seem that the cake gods were shining down on him! He somehow managed not to have a complete meltdown but instead pull on his deal-with-it-pants and crack out an absolutely belting ‘It’s all downhill from here’ landscape cake.
Fair play to ye, Iain. But let’s just hope the naming of your cake wasn’t prophetic, eh?
FAREWELL TO THE FIRST OF THE CLASS OF 2025
Ah Hassan, cake week was not your week, was it?
Two pretty disastrous bakes in the first two rounds meant that his showstopper really had to be next level. But sadly it wasn’t and he became the first baker to leave the tent in 2025. So much for my high hopes of him being as brilliant as fellow scientist Rahul!
And Pui Man didn’t deliver the visually stunning bakes I had thought she might this week. Perhaps biscuit week will spark her creativity?
A big well done to Nataliia for becoming The GBBO Class of 2025’s first star baker! I loved the personal memories and meaning you injected into your baking and the beautiful way in which you executed them 💕
Until next week!
