Bake Off fame is no cakewalk, Flora tells hopefuls
Show’s star recalls the pain of Aga saga trolls
SHE withstood the heat of the kitchen to make it to the semi-final of last year’s beloved Great British Bake Off.
But Flora Shedden yesterday warned those following in her footsteps this year of the perils of going online after the episodes have been aired.
The 20-year-old said that, despite advice by the BBC show’s producers to prepare for a high level of public interest, nothing could have readied her for the frenzied level of attention her participation in the baking contest brought.
Miss Shedden, of Dunkeld, Perthshire, said: ‘It was a total shock. It was lovely – and it was also really, really horrible. Sometimes it was fantastic and at other times I
‘It was lovely and really horrible’
thought, “Jeez, just give me a break”.’ During one episode, an innocent enough comment about how she was more used to baking in an Aga than a conventional oven, set social media alight.
Miss Shedden, the youngest competitor, had forgotten to preheat the oven for her blood-orange Madeira cake and explained the mistake by saying during the show, ‘At home we’ve got an Aga and I’m so used to having it on all the time.’
Then a clip filmed at the family’s home showed the Aga, while Miss Shedden’s then ten-year-old sister circled the eight-seat kitchen table on a pink unicycle.
Critics tweeted that she probably owned ‘four ponies and a Range Rover’. One wrote: ‘I already hate Flora, she’s too posh.’
In an interview ahead of the launch of the 2016 Bake Off later this month, Miss Shedden said she would always go through her Twitter comments after each episode with her mother and sister.
She added: ‘I’d definitely advise this year’s bakers never to go on and look alone as some of it can be really nasty. It can be a very isolating thing. With my mum and sister, they’d make a joke of it.
‘The whole Aga saga, where I was labelled as this posh girl, was just one part of it. You’re forming opinions based on an hour of telly and you can’t know someone from that.’
Miss Shedden only applied for last year’s show three hours before the deadline because ‘I’d had a few glasses of wine’.
And before long she was stepping into the tent. She said: ‘I’d bonded with the other bakers over dinner but we didn’t meet Paul [Hollywood] and Mary [Berry] until they walked into the tent to judge us on the first day. It was the fear of seeing them there that made it real.’
After only a few episodes, Miss Shedden had offers of cookbook deals flooding in. As a result, she postponed her art degree studies at St Andrews University to pen a cookbook titled Gatherings – due for publication in January – and will not return to university this September.
She began undertaking personal appearances, appearing on TV shows, or rubbing shoulders with the likes of Sir David Attenborough and Jeremy Clarkson at parties.
She cannot wait for this year’s show, adding: ‘I couldn’t really watch my one because it made me feel quite sick. I couldn’t stand my face – or my voice actually.
‘My advice to the bakers is to keep your family and friends close and be open because you never know what will come out of it.’