Glam student, Libyan teen and a Polish PA... is this most diverse Bake Off ever?
IT’S time to tie up your aprons and spruce up your soggy bottoms – as the Great British Bake Off returns with its most diverse line-up yet.
A Libyan sales assistant and a nanny who fled wartorn Angola are among the 12 contestants battling it out in the Bake Off tent.
A student from Northern Ireland, a ‘camp’ Polish PA and a grandmother of four will also be trying to impress judges, Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood.
Six of the contestants for series 13 were born outside the UK or to migrant parents in the country and have an average age of just 35.
The youngest of this year’s bakers is Libyanborn Maisam, 18, who now lives in Greater Manchester. The student and sales assistant – who speaks five languages including Arabic, Turkish and Spanish – decided to apply for the series only after her friends complimented her baking.
The eldest contestant is IT manager Dawn, 60, from Bedfordshire who prides herself on her ‘whacky and intricate’ designs.
Also in the new cohort is Polish-born Janusz, 34. The personal assistant, who lives in East Sussex, describes his baking as ‘colourful and camp’ and said he uses his heritage to spice up British classics. Sandro, 30, who fled the Angolan war when he was a toddler, started baking when he was 21 to cope with the grief of losing his father. The London-based nanny, who is a self-confessed ‘baking machine’, also runs virtual cooking classes for children with autism.
And Rebs, 23, is also hoping to win over viewers with bakes inspired by her childhood in County Antrim. The Masters student has more than 1,200 followers on Instagram and often posts photos of her cat Branston and her travels abroad.
The Channel 4 show, which is hosted by Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding, will return to screens on September 13.