Viewers’ outrage as Flora is kicked out of Bake Off kitchen
HER showstopper fell to pieces and her macarons were overbaked.
But despite her dismal semi-final performance, viewers were furious Scotland’s Great British Bake Off hope Flora Sheddon was kicked off the show this week.
Viewers were far from happy with the judges’ decision to send home teenager Flora, 19, on Wednesday, with many saying photographer Ian Cumming, 42, should have been axed.
In good news for the BBC, however, the GBBO final looks set to be the biggest TV event of 2015 and the most watched episode in the show’s history.
Wednesday’s semi-final was watched by 10.2million viewers, 1.4million more than 2014’s offering. This already places it among the year’s most popular programmes.
One person tweeted: ‘Bake Off was a joke. Ian pours some chocolate into a mold and gets worshipped like Jesus whereas Flora makes a carousel and they crucify her [sic].’
While another added: ‘How was that decision justified? Flora performed stronger across the whole three challenges than Ian did’.
A third wrote: ‘ How did Ian survive that? Flora robbed’.
Miss Shedden was eliminated as she crumbled under the pressure of the competition.
She was left close to tears when her show stopper collapsed in front of the judges and she again focused more on the decoration of her offerings than the quality of their bakes.
Paul Hollywood was also criticised for being too scathing with his comments, with many viewers calling him ‘mean’ and ‘harsh’.
The judge was particularly disparaging of Miss Shedden’s chocolate tart and the macarons she placed on top of it for decoration. On tasting them, he said: ‘ If you’re going do a macaron, do it properly. Not good. Over-baked. Dry as a bone.’ He also went on to say her homemade horseshaped stencils look like dogs.
He even accused Cumming of not making enough effort in his show stopper, despite having assembled a working well out of chocolate.
One person tweeted: ‘To be fair on Ian, [Bake Off] is possibly the only place you could make AN ACTUAL WORKING WELL out of chocolate and be told to make more effort’.
Despite being brought to tears by the stress and coming last in the technical challenge, mother-of-three Nadiya Hussain, 30, was awarded star baker for the third time – and the second consecutively. She now heads into next week’s final as clear favourite.
The episode, which was the second time this year Bake Off has attracted more than 10million viewers, also saw anaesthetist Tamal Ray, 28, make it through for a chance to secure the Bake Off title.
During series one to four, Bake Off attracted between 2.5million and 8.4million for its final episodes. This series has seen each of its nine episodes so far pull in even more.
Last year’s finale attracted an audience of 12.3million but this record is on course to be broken this year.