A showstopping display is needed to take the title A

ND now, the end is near, and so we face… the final Bake Off.

Yep, we can hardly believe that it’s true, and are sobbing into our choux nuns at the prospect, but this year’s Bake Off is coming to its conclusion.

It’s been a belting series, full of lovely quirky characters who we’ve genuinely been invested in and – for pretty much the first time ever – we’ve not even disliked anyone.

There’s usually at least a couple of the bakers who wind us up and who we’re really quite relieved when they get booted out of the tent. But this year we’ve loved the whole dozen of them. They’ve clearly all been great pals too, supporting each other by helping out in the final frantic few minutes of a bake, wearing Hawaiian shirts in honour of a fallen comrade, or wiping away tears when the tiers went crashing. And now we are left with our three finalists – Ruby, Kim-Joy and Rahul.

They’re all so different in style and personality, but evenly matched when it comes to their ability to produce deliciousness. Each of the three has been crowned Star Baker twice, and alongside those peaks they’ve all also had tearful catastrophic moments, meaning it feels like the closest final in recent memory. But before we find out who will take the 2018 title, they have three tough challenges to get through. The Signature sees our terrific trio tackling doughnuts, complete with immaculate decoration. Then the Technical for once seems pretty simple, until they discover that it’s not actually going to be baked in the tent!

For the final day, as their friends, families and former contestants all gather for a party outside, they have to prepare an intricate, multi-layered edible landscape Showstopper.

Anyone else want them all to win?