The Great British Bake Off is serving up another slice of delicious TV, with Channel 4 welcoming back hosts Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding for the show’s 15th season. Cake connoisseurs Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood are set to scrutinise the new batch of bakers as they tackle cake week.
This time around, the contestants are tasked with taking a simple loaf cake to new heights and then bamboozling the judges with hyper-realistic illusion cakes. While the tent is brimming with baking blunders and jaw-dropping surprises, there’s a lot that happens off-camera that viewers don’t get to see.
Despite juggling their personal lives during the week, the bakers dedicate their entire weekends to the competition. Past participants have shared tales of gruelling filming schedules, with episodes taking anywhere from 10 to 16 hours to shoot.
Antony Amourdoux from season nine spilled the beans to Insider: “You start early in the morning and it ends a little after six or seven in the evening. Normally they shoot on the weekends because some contestants work like I was working.”
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CHANNEL 4)
He added, “So Saturday will be the whole day and Sunday will be early in the morning to around midday.”
The result is an entire weekend’s worth of footage packed into a single episode, which explains why contestants don’t change outfits throughout the weekend.
A significant amount of content never makes it to the screen, with up to 16 hours of footage being edited down to just one hour of television.
Rayo also revealed that contestants are collected from their hotels at 9am every Saturday and Sunday to ensure there’s ample time for all the baking action to be captured on film.
Typically, the show is shot over a span of 10 weeks from April to June, allowing the bakers to maintain their regular jobs during the week.
This year’s line-up includes Andy, a 44-year-old mechanic hailing from Essex, Christian, a 33-year-old menswear designer based in London, Dylan, a 20-year-old retail worker from Buckinghamshire, and Georgie, a 34-year-old paediatric nurse from Carmarthenshire.
Joining them are Gill, a 53-year-old manager from Lancashire, Hazel, a 71-year-old former nail technician from Kent, Illiyin, a 31-year-old birth trauma specialist midwife from Norfolk, Jeff, a 67-year-old ex-university lecturer from West Yorkshire, and John, a 37-year-old directorate support manager from the West Midlands.
Completing the roster are Mike, a 29-year-old farm manager from Wiltshire, Nelly, a 44-year-old palliative care assistant from Dorset, and Sumayah, a 19-year-old dentistry student from Lancashire.
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CHANNEL 4)
The Great British Bake Off returns to Channel 4 on September 24 at 8pm
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