One described it as “like the first day at school”, while another told of “having some pretty crazy dreams about cakes chasing me”.
And so it was that 12 fresh amateur bakers were introduced to the nation as the BBC’s Great British Bake Off returned to television screens – billed this year as something of a return to basics.
Hot out of the traps as a potential frontrunner on the popular reality show were Jane Beedle, 61, a garden designer from Beckenham who earned this season’s first star baker accolade. Others included banker Selasi Gbormittah, 30, and teaching assistant Benjamina Ebuehi, 23.
For the Rev Lee Banfield, a 67-year-old pastor and former builder from Bolton, this season’s first technical challenge – to produce a plate of jaffa cakes – proved to be a bridge too far, however, and he became the first contestant to be eliminated.
“I won’t show the congregation how to make a jaffa cake. I am not going to repeat that experience: I’ll buy them a pack instead,” he said after the episode, which also saw contestants being required to construct a perfect Genoise sponge with a mirror glaze for their final bakes, known as “the showstopper”.
Banfield struggled early on, with his sponge turning into clumps while preparing an orange-and-lemon drizzle cake, which he based on the bells of St Clements. Paul Hollywood, one of the show’s two judges, praised the flavour of his bake but criticised the texture as “awful”.
Banfield’s jaffa cakes in the technical challenge were uneven and had lumps of chocolate in the middle, instead of being smooth and uniform.
This year’s group – who also include a PE teacher, a banker and an aerospace engineer – have been “slower to bond this year than they were in the past,” according to Mary Berry, Hollywood’s fellow judge.
