Bake Off finale
What next for this year’s showstoppers?
You only have to look at the career of Nadiya Hussain – BBC presenting jobs, children’s book, novel, newspaper recipe column – to see that winning The
Great British Bake Off can change your life. The three bakers left in this year’s competition, Sophie Faldo, Kate Lyon and Steven Carter-bailey, will go into tonight’s final knowing that fame, fortune and a publishing deal are only a showstopper away.
But those bakers who didn’t make it through to the end need not weep into their crème pâtissière. Departing contestants from other reality shows – think The Apprentice or even The
X Factor, these days – declare, “You haven’t heard the last from me!” before disappearing into obscurity or panto. But Bake Off is different.
Researching a book on the history of the programme, I came across dozens of bakers who have parlayed just a few hours on television into the career of their dreams. Miranda Gore Browne appeared in the very first series, back in 2010, having taken voluntary redundancy from her job as a buyer for M&S; she had recently had a baby and spent her maternity leave icing biscuits, imagining how nice it would be to do that for a living.
Seven years on, she is an established food writer, consultant for the National Trust and ambassador for cooker makers AGA, the author of two baking books – including one about iced biscuits – and the host for cookery classes at her West Sussex home. It was Mary Berry who set her on the right path by offering some guidance. “When filming ended, I asked Mary if I could talk to her,” Gore Browne recalls. “She asked if I had an idea for a book and I said yes, so she told me to get myself an agent. I spent the next two months cold-calling literary agents. A lot of people thought we [former contestants] got phone calls to say, ‘Would you like to do a book?’ – but we didn’t. Mary gave me the confidence. I wouldn’t have had the self-belief to sit down and write it without her.”
Ali Imdad came ninth in series four, in 2013. He subsequently opened a dessert parlour, Artisan, in his native Birmingham, and presents a show on British Muslim TV. “Until
Bake Off was aired, I just carried on with life as normal. Only once it airs do you get to gauge how it might affect your life,” he says. He was popular with viewers, and the positive reaction gave him the impetus to quit his job as a marketing consultant and become a full-time baker. “I decided to jump in at the deep end and that’s what I did. And I haven’t looked back since.” It helps to have a niche, he adds. “You don’t get many male Muslim bakers. So I get to play on that, and it’s worked for me.”
A fellow contestant in series four, and a semi-finalist, was Beca Lyne-pirkis, who now also has her own TV show on the Welsh-language channel S4C. She is a consultant for London’s Borough Market, teaches at a cookery school, and provides her many Instagram followers with daily updates of what she’s having for supper. It’s her perfect career. “I never dreamt going on Bake Off would lead to this,” she says. “I could pinch myself.”
None of this, though, is handed to the bakers on a plate. With a dozen contestants graduating from the show each year in search of a book deal or regular presenting gig, only those with good ideas and a great deal of determination will make it.
Chetna Makan has written two books inspired by her Indian heritage since appearing in series five. “Obviously being on Bake Off changed my life,” she says. “But I could have stopped there, like so many did. It is a lot of hard work – it’s
‘I never dreamt Bake Off would lead to this –I could pinch myself ’
Despite only appearing in one episode, the exposure was enough to get his business off the ground
not as easy as some people think.”
Nadiya was the winner in 2015, and is remembered for her inspirational speech after being handed the trophy: “I’m never going to put boundaries on myself ever again. I’m never going to say I can’t do it. I’m never going to say ‘maybe’. I’m never going to say, ‘I don’t think I can’. I can and I will.”
But do you remember the baker who went home first in series six? It was Stu Henshall, a tattooed musician who wrote songs for The Prodigy and fell at the first Bake Off hurdle when he put beetroot in a Black Forest Gateau. Yet, despite only appearing in a single episode of the show, the exposure was enough to get his food business off the ground. He now runs The Alternative Kitchen, offering cookery lessons, catering and supper clubs, with an emphasis on vegan recipes. Being on the show was, he says, “an amazing experience. It just happened at a point in my music career where I was fed up with being away all the time. I wanted to do something with food and it gave me that leg-up.”
Opening a shop is the dream for many former contestants. Marie Campbell, of series six, did just that, after friends and neighbours began approaching her to ask if she could make celebration cakes for them. Such was the demand that her husband persuaded her to find permanent premises. She is now the proud owner of Marie’s Little Cake Shop near Gleneagles in Scotland. Customers come from miles around just to sample the wares of a real-life Bake Off baker. “I think it was because I was ‘star baker’ and it got out of hand,” she laughs. “They all want a wee selfie.”
Others combine professional baking with their day jobs. James Morton was a medical student when he took part in series three – and made Fair Isle knit tank-tops famous in the process. A runner-up on the show, he went on to qualify as a doctor and write three books. His blog is a mix of cinnamon bun recipes and lengthy posts about the plight of the NHS. Meanwhile, series four baker Kimberley Wilson now combines her work as a psychologist with food writing. “I got a lot of people asking me if I was going to quit psychology – even psychologists!” she says. “I was like, ‘I love my job and I just spent 10 years training to do it’.”
Richard Burr brought out a book after appearing in series five and now keeps up a regular blog, gives demonstrations at food festivals and appears on TV – all while continuing his work as a builder. During one spot on the BBC’S Saturday Kitchen programme, he was also refurbishing a house in Finchley, north London: “In between appearing on set, I was phoning up scaffolders,” he recalls.
Richard was one of Bake Off’s most popular contestants, beloved by the public for the small pencil he kept constantly tucked behind his ear, as if – any minute – he’d be measuring up the tent for a new kitchen extension. It is another reason that the show stands apart from its rivals: the bakers’ personalities shine through from the start, rather than being buried under a heap of reality TV clichés (“I’m going to give it 110 per cent…”). Viewers quickly pick their favourites. And while this year’s crop of finalists might have failed to grab the nation’s attention in the same way – a symptom, perhaps, of the move from the BBC to Channel 4 – there was one baker who won our hearts: Liam Charles, the young Hackney student whose quarter-final exit elicited howls of protest on social media.
After leaving the show during Forgotten Bakes Week this month, Liam tweeted that it was “just the beginning” for him. If the experience of past contestants is anything to go by, he is absolutely right.
The Story of the Great British Bake Off by Anita Singh is published by Head of Zeus (£20). To order your copy for £16.99 plus p&p, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books. telegraph.co.uk