‘Perfect Peter’ is the right winner in a nail-biting final
The Great British Bake Off Final
There were tears and there were also tiers – although thankfully not the Covid restriction type. After 10 weeks, 30 rounds and one bio-secure bubble, The Great British Bake
Off reached its climax with a remarkably tight finish.
There was so little to separate Hampshire security guard Dave Friday and Edinburgh University student Peter Sawkins that you’d struggle to slide a sheet of filo pastry between them.
In the end, Sawkins edged it to become Bake Off’s youngest ever champion at just 20 and the contest’s first ever Scots winner. It was the right result. Affectionately nicknamed “the baby-faced assassin” by co-presenter Noel Fielding and “Perfect Peter” by rivals, he has been consistently excellent, coming into this final as bookies’ favourite and reigning Star Baker.
The rapidly improving Friday came close but just fell short. With his intense stare and unabashed competitiveness, Friday would have made a divisive champion.
By contrast, Sawkins was impossible to dislike. He’s also part of the “Bake Off generation” who have grown up watching the show. He first donned oven gloves aged 12, inspired by the series. Silver-bearded judge Paul Hollywood sighed indulgently at how old Sawkins made him feel.
The third finalist, chaotic Laura Adlington from Kent, only just squeaked through to the final after too many messy bakes. Rather too predictably, she ruled herself out of the running early here.
Her custard slices didn’t set. Her walnut whirls didn’t either. After a disastrous day in the sweltering tent – temperatures reached 35C when it was filmed in August – Laura wept with her head in the fridge.
Her flavours were always delicious, but her finesse simply wasn’t up to snuff.
As the boys battled it out for the coveted glass cakestand trophy and the title of Britain’s best amateur baker, momentum swung first one way, then the other. Peter’s custard slices were superior but Dave’s walnut whirls won.
Even in the decisive show-stopper round, each produced a tiered dessert tower in which two elements were near perfect and two were flawed. Hollywood and Prue Leith said it was the closest call yet. For once, this didn’t seem like gratuitous hyperbole.
Peter’s pleasing win put the cherry on top of a successful series. Ratings have been buoyant. New co-host Matt Lucas has proved inspired casting, combining wit and kindness with a clear love of cake. Most of all, viewers were thankful Bake Off 2020 happened at all.
It took a Herculean effort to stage this series under lockdown. Love Productions had to move the location to Down Hall Hotel in Essex, where everyone could live on site in a painstakingly sanitised environment.
And although the restrictions meant no celebratory garden party for the bakers’ friends and families, it felt fitting that this traditional end-of-series get-together was, instead, attended by the 120 crew members who sacrificed so much to keep the programme on air, living apart from their loved ones for six weeks. They deserved their moment in the sun.
In this strange year, there would have been a yawning gap in Channel 4’s schedules without that fabled white marquee. A nation needed televisual comfort from its favourite sweettoothed treat and it duly delivered. Good bake and bravo, wee Peter.
nation needed televisual comfort – and its favourite sweet treat delivered