So that’s it for another series of Bake Off – it has been brilliant, and liveblogging has been a pleasure as always, mostly due to everyone who has taken the time to join in with so many insightful, hilarious and downright random comments. If it was logistically practical, I’d deliver a hand-made éclair to every one of you.
And whilst I’m hanging up my Bake Off apron for another year, I’ll be liveblogging Strictly every weekend until Christmas, so feel free to join me on Saturday and Sunday nights. You can also find me on Twitter @heidistephens, so please come and say hello.
Don’t know about you, but I’m off to drink wine and eat cake, possibly not in that order. Cheers! Hx
Lovely to see what this year’s bakers have been up to since the show. Sandy is baking in schools, Matt has become a dad, Flora has started university, and Ian recently made an 80th birthday cake for the Dalai Lama. As you do.
“I’m never going to put boundaries on myself ever again” says Nadiya. “I’m never going to say I can’t. I’m never going to say maybe”. A lesson for us all, I think. Even Mary is having a tearful moment.
It’s final judgement time, and the winner of The Great British Bake Off 2015 is….NADIYA!
What a fantastic show, and a very worthy winner. Nadiya has been on an extraordinary journey, and is an amazing talent. I can’t wait to see more of her baking.
Nadiya’s kids are so over the moon. And now I have something in my eye.
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So all three contestants did a superb Showstopper, but it surely HAS to be Nadiya for the win – she has shone on all three of the final challenges.
Ian’s waterfall of carrot cakes looks pretty impressive, and Paul declares it one of the best carrot cakes he’s ever had. What a fantastic Showstopper.
Tamal’s cake is incredible – no idea what it’s supposed to be, but it will be great for Halloween. Mary LOVES the sticky toffee cake, and Paul is super-impressed. GO TAMAL.
Nadiya’s cakes look beautiful, and the flowers are spectacular. There’s an even bake on each one, and the lemon comes through on each layer. Paul gives it a “stunning”, and I’m having a small cry.
Ian is having a small cry, it’s been emotional. They’ve all worked so hard, why can’t they all win?
Three minutes to go, and panic is setting in. Nobody is finished, apart from Nadiya. She has OWNED this final. Group hug!
Tamal’s caramel has set too hard. Half an hour to go, so he’s softening it in the microwave. Icing is going on, the tension music is ramping up, and people are starting to jog around the tent.
Paul is prowling round the tent trying to unnerve everyone. “Happy, Nadiya?” he asks. “Yeah. Happy, Paul?” she replies. I love sassy Nadiya best of all.
Nice try @PaulHollywood #GBBOFinal pic.twitter.com/awDb0o82Oa
— BBCFood (@BBCFood) October 7, 2015
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Nadiya has frozen her cakes, so they cut better. Ian miscalculated his first batch of cake, and he’s forgotten to put the oranges in the second batch. UH OH.
Meanwhile all the other contestants have arrived for the garden party. Ugne is still crackers.
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Ian is running behind, but encouraged to see that Tamal is still putting things into the oven. When you’re benchmarking your timings on Tamal, you know you’re in trouble.
Nadiya Is making a lemon drizzle wedding cake – the one she would have had if she’s got married in the UK rather than Bangladesh, where they don’t do wedding cake. She’s even including some of the jewels from her wedding dress.
Nadiya’s husband is rather handsome. Just saying.
Tamal is muttering about the judges wanting precision, whilst Nadiya is trusting her instinct and blobbing batter into pans by eye. Ian wants to quickly do some maths, because that’s what Ian does. He’s concerned that he’s failed to calculate the area of each tin correctly.
Why not use Pi, Ian? PIE, geddit? Oh NEVER MIND.
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Nadiya and Tamal are both making a 3-tiered cake, whilst Ian is going for five. It’s designed to look like a cascading liquid carrot. Ian has a very lovely house, but it looks like he’s trashed his kitchen. I’m sure there’s another in the east wing.
Nadiya is making lemon drizzle cake, which is one of my favourites. Ian is making carrot cake, which I only like if it comes with two inches of cheesy frosting.
Tamal is making a sticky toffee pudding fruit cake, with decorations based on an abandoned fishing village in China. Has there ever been a Bake Off contestant more random than Tamal?
Time for the final Showstopper! They need to make a classic British cake – single flavoured, but multiple tiers. And as many bells and whistles as they can fit on.
This.
YAHS at Nadiya bossing this final like no final of Bake Off has ever been bossed. #gbbo
— Chris Rubery (@Chrisrubery) October 7, 2015
Tamal comes third, Ian gets second, and Nadiya gets first. This is Nadiya’s to win right now. I can’t WAIT for the Showstopper.
To me these look like berries and cream sandwiched between a pile of Ryvitas. Ian has cut his icing diagonally, which looks lovely.
Tamal’s are a mess – the layers are a disaster. Nadiya’s are neater, but feels more like shortcrust. Ian’s top hasn’t bonded to the pastry, the sugar syrup wasn’t thick enough. And his pastry isn’t cooked.
Time to roll the pastry to the right size, so they’ve all got their rulers out. Tamal thinks his looks horrendous, but hopes he won’t be judged. I’m worried that Tamal doesn’t yet understand how this competition works.
Tamal has made the mistake of looking at Nadiya’s pastry, and now he feels even worse. But Nadiya can’t do maths, which is currently fairly vital.
Nadiya has worked out Paul’s devilish plan to punish them for past pastry fails. They’re making rough puff pastry, albeit Tamal is working on his own interpretation. The instructions say “make a jam”, followed by “make a sugar syrup”, but there are no further directions. Nobody knows what it’s for – glossing the raspberries, maybe? They then have to make candy striped icing, but none of them have a clue where to start. Do you roll it into stripes, or cut them out? Nadiya starts arguing with herself. This is never a good sign.
Paul chose this recipe because all three bakers have had problems with pastry previously. CRUEL.
Time for the last ever Technical Challenge! They need to make six raspberry millefeuilles. Ooh, I’ve actually made these.
Tamal’s icing doesn’t have a shine, and Paul reminds him that his timing issues have been a problem before. The flavours are good, but the icing isn’t right. The flavour of his marmalade buns is perfect, a real shame he didn’t finish.
Nadiya’s buns are much smarter, mostly because she didn’t batch-bake them. The flavours are lovely, and get a thumbs-up from the judges. GO NADIYA!
Judgement time in the final Signature Bake. Ian’s look a bit scruffy, and Mary is amazed he was finished on time. Paul doesn’t think the cardamom flavour works with the apple and cranberry, and thinks Ian might have left the sugar out. The lemon and elderflower ones are lovely, however.
Tamal’s crème pat hasn’t set, so he can’t use it. Three minutes to go, and he’s in a bit of a panic. Time’s up!
Nadiya has made baps rather than buns, but they look lovely anyway. Tamal’s crème pat is a bit loose, but hopefully pipeable. Ian’s look a bit strange, and he can’t work out why. He might have left something out, who knows?
Buns are going into ovens, Nadiya is nervous that she hasn’t batch-baked hers. Tamal is winding her up and not really helping. They’re quite the double-act, can they have their own show?
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Paul likes his buns to be touching, Ian tells us. I’ll just leave that there.
Tamal and Nadiya are whispering about how they haven’t flavoured their doughs. They’re already ganging upon Ian.
Nadiya is making nutmeg fingers with sour cherry filling, as well as cardamom and almond flavour buns. Hers are going to different shapes, but her hands are shaking so hard who knows what they might end up like?
Tamal and Nadiya are both making one dough, which they’ll use for both buns. Ian, however, is making two different doughs, one with freshly foraged elderflowers. He’ll fill these with lemon curd, and the others will be spiced buns with apple and cranberry. I bet they can’t taste the elderflower.
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Tamal is doing citrus iced buns with a caramel crème pat, as well as apple with vanilla cream.
“Just make sure that the shape and the icing is all perfect, it’s the final”, says Paul, as if Tamal doesn’t know this already. Ian’s enriched dough is going to be quite wet, he tells us, as this makes fluffier buns.
Meanwhile Tamal is inspecting his dough for “the stretch of the gluten”. He even manages to make that sound vaguely alluring, must be the doctor coming through. He then sends the utensil jar flying, and I’m reconsidering the capability of Tamal’s healing hands. Ian is sticking a thermometer in his bread, whilst Nadiya is doing her best meerkat impression.
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The final Signature Challenge – 16 filled iced buns, to include two types of any flavour they like. They have three hours.
My approach – grab bag of hot dog rolls, fill with jam and cream, top with icing. DONE.
Mary is having an iced bun ecstasy moment. Has she been at the wine?
Tamal has delivered daring flavours and ingenuity, and he’s excited to be in the final. Despite coming last in Week 1’s technical, Nadiya has grown in confidence to win Star Baker three times. Ian is the competition’s engineer, and inventor of pioneering flavours. These have been a mixed bag, to be fair.
And we’re off! It’s finally final time! We started with 12 contestants, but now there are only three. Time for a final roll of the lovely credits, and the annoying missing raspberry.
A final pun before we start. Bring it.
I hope Nadiya wins the #GBBOFinal. Because hell hath no fury like a woman sconed.
— Ed Brody (@chiefbrody1984) October 7, 2015
TEN MINUTES TO GO, EVERYONE!
Here are a few letters to the Guardian about The Great British Bake Off. I particularly like this:
Does the Guardian have a vested interest in The Great British Bake Off which is, I believe, a TV programme? There seems to be an article about it most days, culminating in a feast of a spread this week, your long read. It’s no doubt a piece of cake to write about, but hardly a crumb of comfort for those of us with a taste for something more meaty in our Guardian.
A piece of cake to write about? I ran out of puns in Week 4.
Half an hour to go until kick-off! Here’s tonight’s final Bake-Off bingo (sob) – a swig of fruit-flavoured liqueur for any occurrence of the following:
• Nadiya’s eyebrows doing the Macarena
• Tamal worrying that he doesn’t have enough time
• Mary in a lurid jacket
• Paul’s score on the tan-ometer (one sip for every level of tan; level one being ‘lightly sunkissed’, level ten being ‘boiled ham’)
• Ian-style bespoke gadgetry
• Anyone baking a windmill
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This is a lovely Q&A with Tom Hovey, who does all the Bake Off illustrations. He’s done over 1000 cake drawings so far, but apparently no good at baking. Well, you can’t have everything.
I might be mistaken, but I think Tamal is excited. Really hoping he’s not in surgery right now.
AAAAGGGHHH I AM SO BLOODY EXCITED!!! It was months ago but so glad you guys finally get to see it all! #GBBO
— TAMAL RAY (@DrRayBakes) October 7, 2015
Following the pictures of disastrous bakes I posted earlier, here’s some mighty impressive cake work. The violin is extraordinary.
I fully support this kind of dedication.
It's #GBBO final night so I've bought 10000 calories of cakes and chocolate from the shop and I intend to eat them ALL.
— Tom Crookes (@tomcrookes91) October 7, 2015
This.
When you realise there's only 1 HOUR till #GBBOFinal #GBBO pic.twitter.com/Z1d5ML6dNT
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) October 7, 2015
Are you the next Nadiya, Tamal or Ian? Can you hold your nerve in the face of Paul’s Paddington stare? Is your Swiss meringue crispy? Do you know how to make a Genoise sponge? (I’m looking at you, Prison Paul)
If you answered yes to any of the above, applications are open for next year’s Bake Off. You can apply here.
At the end of the Turkish version of Bake Off, all the contestants and judges have a dance. And suddenly the UK version seems very sedate by comparison.
Omg. At the end of Bake Off Turkey series, they ALL dance together. Everyone. Even the judges. This is amazing. pic.twitter.com/2vkVOf88Wf
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) September 16, 2015
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Even though this bun is overbaked, nothing gets in the way of the Bake Off Final. Good work.
Five days overdue but the baby can wait now! #GBBOFinal
— Vicki Bolton (@VickiBolton7) October 7, 2015
Love this picture from Firefighter Mat. Flora, Mat, Ugne, Sandy all giving it welly on the Can-Can. Alvin and Dorret tentatively joining in. Everyone else being very British about it.
It's Bake Off final day!! I Think that calls for the Can Can! Good luck @DrRayBakes @iancpix @BegumNadiya #gbbo pic.twitter.com/BfNvOr156E
— Mat Riley (@matrileybakes) October 7, 2015
Oh wait, this is a much better pun. Good use of Food-gees lyrics.
Bready or not, here they come! Gonna find choux and bake it slowly. #GBBOFinal. 🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰 pic.twitter.com/sGRGAhVdC6
— BBC Bun (@BBCOne) October 7, 2015
The BBC One social team is on good form today. They’ve changed their name to “BBC Bun”, and the puns are coming thick and fast.
All you need is loaf... The #GBBOFinal. Tonight. 8pm. @BBCOne. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/BMGanNvZlx
— BBC Bun (@BBCOne) October 7, 2015
Likewise BBC iPlayer is now ‘PiePlayer’. See what they did there?
Team piePlayer is excited for the #GBBOFinal 🍰🍰🍰 pic.twitter.com/KELGPZBXIi
— BBC piePlayer (@BBCiPlayer) October 7, 2015
A tweet from the lovely Richard Burr, last year’s runner-up. Hope he’s got his ear-pencil.
Hanging out at Broadcasting House. Going onto the news channel to talk about Syria... Or Bake Off. Definitely one if those two... #GBBO
— Richard Burr (@RichardPBurr) October 7, 2015
As posted by AndyInBrum below, this Buzzfeed post featuring my good friend Scott Bryan baking every one of this year’s Technical Challenges is very funny. If you really want to make Scott’s day, feel free to tweet “Is that kale?” to @scottygb.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/scottybryan/i-was-pretty-crap-basically#.anwjBpyvx
Ooh, this is fun - a “name that baker” quiz. I got 8 out of 10, which is a bit worrying.
I love a statistic. Thanks Jack!
If you only read one thing about Bake Off between now and 8pm, make it Charlotte Higgins’ wonderful Long Read. Was there ever a paragraph more delicious than this?
Bake Off is rapturous, it is agonising, it is hilarious. And yet, how minuscule and how utterly ridiculous, after all. This is an economy of minor anxieties and insignificant dangers: the emotional range of a comfortable life, fretted by quotidian storms – a parking ticket, a stressful day at work, a forgotten lunch date. Bake Off validates the small quiet dramas of the trifling everyday.
Charlotte has also done a Podcast version here:
Even David Cameron is riding the Bake Off bandwagon today. In his closing speech at the Conservative Party Conference, he finished with this little bit of finely-spun sugarwork:
“A Greater Britain, made of greater expectations, where renters become homeowners, employees become employers, a small island becomes an even bigger economy, and where extremism is defeated once and for all...”
“A Great British take-off - that leaves no-one behind.”
Like nails down a blackboard.
Oh Sue Perkins, how you tease us. What could possibly be better than the Lion Head? A full-sized fondant giraffe? An entire zoo made of biscuits?
Thought we couldn't trump a Lion bread-head? Tonight's GBBO final is a proper cracker. Enjoy xx
— Sue Perkins (@sueperkins) October 7, 2015
Tonight’s finalists have been posting selfies from the final day on Twitter. Apart from Ian, who is a professional photographer and clearly doesn’t lower himself to such things. Here’s a lovely one from Tamal, who I’m increasingly convinced only owns two T-shirts.
A little selfie taken at the Final. How far we've come! Hope you enjoy tonight as much as we did filming it. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/DX3nb5GB6u
— TAMAL RAY (@DrRayBakes) October 7, 2015
And here’s Nadiya’s. Tamal also owns a denim shirt.
Last episode of #GBBO so proud to be in it to the end with my friends @DrRayBakes @iancpix #privileged pic.twitter.com/SOUJbUTvr4
— Nadiya Jamir Hussain (@BegumNadiya) October 7, 2015
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Even the British Museum are on board, with some fascinating Roman baking kit. How did they manage without Lakeland?
#GBBOFinal tonight! The Romans pulled off showstoppers with these baking items 2,000 yrs ago! http://t.co/R0efaug07B pic.twitter.com/R3dasBCE2y
— British Museum (@britishmuseum) October 7, 2015
Also love this baking-themed tube map from @Londonist. ‘Congealing Common’ might be best avoided, but ‘Kensingtongs Ocrimpia’ is inspired.
Who's excited for the #GBBOFinal tonight? Get in the mood with our baking tube map http://t.co/1wSfVWKfY3 pic.twitter.com/HJXPpE0FcQ
— Londonist (@Londonist) October 7, 2015
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A few of my favourite Bake Off-related stories right now - first a hilarious gallery of baking disasters. There’s so much heartbreak in “It looks like a slipper”.
Hello, and welcome to the Great British Bake Off GRAND FINAL liveblog! Tonight Ian, Nadiya and Tamal will go all-out to impress Paul and Mary one last time, in the hope of taking home the coveted Bake Off title and the undying respect of the nation.
So who will it be? It’s going to be a close one, I think. Ian has the edge when it comes to engineering and presentation, but he’s has had issues with flavours in recent weeks. Nadiya is brilliantly creative and has superb design skills, but her confidence wavers, particularly in the Technical. Tamal is king of flavours and cool under pressure, but his bakes can lack the required finish and attention to detail. All of them are incredibly talented bakers, so it’s all going to come down to who can rise to the occasion for tonight’s final three challenges.
The show kicks off at 8pm, so join me then for the final liveblog. In the meantime I’ll be getting us in the mood with a some of the best Bake Off views, reviews and fun stuff going on right now, do join in down below with your thoughts, predictions and favourite moments of the series. For me it has to be Paul’s spectacular bread lion, Ian’s chocolate well and Nadiya’s incredibly expressive eyebrows, which deserve a TV show all of their own.
For the final time...on your marks, get set, BAKE!
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Do you want a statistic? Okay.
In only two episodes of this series has the star baker prize been won by a contestant who isn't in the final.