‘Bake Off’ brings back familiar faces for Christmas shows

FANS of The Great British Bake Off can enjoy more treats after Tuesday’s final, as bakers from previous BBC series are to compete against each other in two festive editions of Channel 4’s GBBO.

Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig, the show’s presenters, and its judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith will present the specials, with familiar contestants returning to show off their skills – or reveal how much they have forgotten – over three challenges.

Channel 4 is keeping a tight lid on which bakers will come back, but it raises the prospect of Frances Quinn, the winner of series four and now ambassador for the Cream Tea Society, going up against Nadiya Hussain, who won series six and has become a successful television cookery presenter.

The return of bakers from GBBO series that were produced by the BBC is a coup for Channel 4. In September last year it outbid the BBC for the rights to screen the show, offering £25million against the corporation’s £15million.

That led to a backlash from fans and the departure of Mary Berry, Hollywood’s fellow judge, and Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, the presenters.

Although the switch led to a fall in viewer numbers – 16.03 million watched last year’s final on the BBC, against 6.5million for the first episode of this se- ries – GBBO has become Channel 4’s biggest show in more than six years, averaging 8.9million viewers per episode.

This year’s finalists are Kate Lyon, 29, a health and safety inspector from Merseyside; Steven Carter-Bailey, 34, from Watford, Herts, who works in marketing; and Sophie Faldo, 33, from Surrey, a former officer in the Royal Artillery and trainee stuntwoman.