The Bake Is Back - the countdown to Great British Bake Off 2026 starts here

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Trailer for the new series just dropped - no transmission date yet though.

Anyone else excited to see how Nigella gets on as the new judge? A worthy successor to Pru and Mary, I think.

That handbag cake is epic. She's done well this week i feel she might get star baker

Who has left?

Clara not paying attention when they announced star baker!

Handbag is awesome but I don't get why Moyin's specifically didn't meet the brief when several were regular cakes of them were cakes sat on the head.

Connie was robbed last week so I'd like to see her get star this week. Shannon must be goin ghome.

Clara? What???

Shannon

I think Clara was looking down at Connie because she expected her to get it

Connie must be wondering what the hell she has to do to win star baker.

So did I!

Loved Clara’s handbag. Shannon was the right person to leave

I agree that others looked like dressed up cakes placed on a head/stand but somehow Moyin’s looked most like just a cake with no pretence at being anything else.

However, I don’t think the judges are consistent with attention to the brief.

Last week Tom’s biscuit mosaic showstopper was a mess, Paul even asked him if he had dropped it. Surely he couldn’t have filled the brief and yet he got star baker.

Makes no sense.

Well, I thought it was v sweet having their family members there - they mostly just helped do prep work and meant that there was some more normal chat to film.
Thought the technical was a good way of spotting who has to revise heavily before each week and who has a lot of skills and ideas at their fingertips - seemed like a good challenge to me.

And the show stopper was no more daft than any of the other structures or “cake sculpture / biscuit house” type ones they do every year. There was a doughnut mobile one once wasn’t there? I’m glad they’d taken a slice of that cake before it toppled to the floor, and I do agree that it didn’t look at all like any sort of fancy hat - literally it was just in exact cake format. Clara’s was excellent and she’d been good throughout so glad to see her win star baker.

Really enjoying nigella’s input - she’s so articulate and seems to take a lot of enjoyment from it all - turning failures round into encouragement and offering good advice.

I could have done without the families.

DH asked who i would take if I had to be on bake off with a family member and was quite outraged when I said DD and not him.🤣

Im.not sure the family part really added anything except for them to mention the thrupple again!

Moyin looked a bit gutted when they dropped the cake and they weren't even apologetic!

There are far too many of them for me to care about their families. Maybe it could work in a later round but could be far too distracting for the bakers

At the start of tonight’s programme they showed Tom’s cake from last week and it looked a mess, which is why we were all shocked on here that he won Star Baker. It was odd to show it as it just compounded our belief.

@TallagallaPenguini agree with everything you've written. I enjoyed it tonight and feel I have a better idea if them all as bakers and as people.
I liked seeing their response in the technical challenge and enjoyed the variety in what they produced.

He did and I thought the criticism of it being too cake like was unfair because I felt like a few if the other 'hat' ones weren't hat like at all either.

Quite!

The producers should consider that the judges lose whatever credibility they have left when they gave Tom star baker after that mess and then talk about people not meeting the brief this week.

Well, we don't know how the bakes taste or what their texture is like.

I'm quite happy for the judges to set a large store by that.

I’m a baker but apart from basic pastry and sponge recipes I can’t remember my quantities got anything. My mind just doesn’t work like at and 68 it’s not likely to start now.

• The gimmick of having a relative to help out added….exactly nothing
• I think Nigella would rather join the boyband than go near Paul.
• Still not warming to most of the contestants.
• It’s clear now, that a good few of the contestants are very new to baking and should have never got on the show
• This episode jumped the shark. Relatives on signature, MasterChef technical, viewers suggestion showstopper. Pick one change, keep everything else traditional.
• Clara should have not won star baker but the handbag was cool.

The theme this week would have worked better later in the series.

We haven't had bread or any kind of pastry yet!

The family thing was just so yer man could mention he was part of a thruple ....again.

I think the older guy is getting sick of Noel's endless Paul Hollywood comparisons.

I agree the handbag was cool but I'd question that something you carry is really 'wearable'. Still, the whole idea of a wearable bake was just stupid anyway.