With the latest series of The Great British Bake Off due to appear on our screens on Tuesday 22nd September it was cutting it fine. But released earlier on Instagram was this year’s contestants. And we’ve done a bit of digging and collating to provide you with a quick rundown on each of this year’s contestants.
Dave
Age: 30
From: Hampshire
Job: Armoured guard
What’s his baking style like? His bakery style is creative and inventive and his strengths lie in bread (pretzels, brioche rolls and baguettes are special favourites) and decoration – he particularly loves a mirror glaze to give his bakes a professional finishing touch.
Strengths and weaknesses: “My strengths are the ability to learn from mistakes, take criticism and use it to improve. I am incredibly determined and see the positive in every situation. Weaknesses would be feeling overwhelmed when mess builds up and struggling with some baking jargon…. And French words!”
Hermine
Age: 39
From: London
Job: Accountant
What’s her baking style like? Benin ‘s French presence has instilled a love of high-end pâtissérie in Hermine-she loves making intricate millefeuille, éclairs and entremets.
Strengths and weaknesses: “My strength is my understanding of how ingredients work together and how to get flavours right. My weakness is the ability to get a clean neat finish under time pressure.”
Laura
Age: 31
From: Kent
Job: Digital manager
What’s her baking style? She loves citrus and strong flavours and enjoys old classics with new twists. She specialises in decoration and is proud to have perfected the art of flowers piped with buttercream.
Strengths and weaknesses: “I bake from the heart and love making things that pack a punch in terms of flavour. Finesse and refinement are not always my strong point.”
Linda
Age: 61
From: East Sussex
Job: Retirement living team leader
What’s her baking style? Her tricks lies in classics and home-comfort cooking, much like her signature sausage rolls.
Strengths and weaknesses: “I think my experience over the years would be my strength, but my weakness is definitely poor timing.”
Loriea
Age: 27
From: Durham
Job: Diagnostic radiographer
What’s her baking style? In her food, Loriea loves to include coconut, chillies and cinnamon. Rarely does she specifically follow a recipe. In reality, she begins to think about how she can modify it from the moment she reads a recipe to make it herself.
Strengths and weaknesses: “My strength is my cool and calm nature and my ability to work well under pressure. Outside of these, I think I have great strengths with blending untraditional flavours. However, these are not always to everyone’s taste. On the other hand, my weakness lies in my inability to follow a recipe without having to put my own twist in, I struggle to think in a simplistic way.”
Lottie
Age: 31
From: West Sussex
Job: Pantomime producer
What’s her baking style? She calls herself a ‘perpetually frustrated perfectionist’ and hopes that while her baking has become more sophisticated over time, it retains an aspect of her dark sense of humour.
Strengths and weaknesses: “Weaknesses – timing and decoration. I get lost in making sure I know what I am doing technically so I often run out of time or serve something that looks nothing like I had expected or wanted it to! Strengths – Turns out I’m a fast learner! I taught myself a lot of techniques ahead of the show and really enjoyed the process.”
Mak
Age: 51
From: Greater Manchester
Job: Accountant
What is his baking style? Mak’s strengths lie in pastry (he claims he ‘s better at puff than shortcrust). He enjoys making traditional Asian nankhatai biscuits for celebrations like Eid.
Strengths and weaknesses: “As a baker one of my biggest strengths is that I’m not daunted by much. I will have a go. My biggest weakness is the mess I create!”
Marc
Age: 51
From: Cornwall
Job: Support worker
What’s his baking style? His bakes exhibit true finesse, from palm trees and chausson aux pommes to opera cakes and millefeuille.
Strengths and weaknesses: “My strengths are definitely bread and any dough based recipes – my weakness is cakes.”
Mark
Age: 32
From: Liverpool
Job: Project manager
What’s his baking style? Mark is highly influenced by his Irish roots, but also by the flavours of Africa and Asia, where he frequently travels as a public health research project manager for his work.
Strengths and weaknesses: “I think I am quite a versatile baker and always up for a challenge. My biggest weakness is baking to a time limit – at home I spend hours (and sometimes days!) baking something as a way of de-stressing, so I wasn’t sure how I would deal with that in the tent!”
Peter
Age: 20
From: Edinburgh
Job: Accounting & finance student
What’s his baking style? In his cooking, he likes to use Scottish ingredients whenever he can, including berries, whisky, oats and honey.
Strengths and weaknesses: “My strengths are time management and planning. My weaknesses are artistic decoration and bread baking.”
Rowan
Age: 55
From: Worcestershire
Job: Music teacher
What’s his baking style?Rowan calls his style of baking ostentatious, but he hopes it will be delicious. His absolute passion is French pâtissérie – he loves the subtlety of taste, and the elegance and sophistication of French baking, and he is attracted to fine, intricate, layered cakes. His passion of the Georgian age inspires him to recreate cakes from the 18th century whenever he can.
Strengths and weaknesses: “My strengths are ambition in ideas and design. My weakness is over-ambition and no interest in timings!”
Sura
Age: 31
From: London
Job: Pharmacy dispenser
What’s her baking style? Age: 31
From: London
Job: Pharmacy dispenser
What’s her baking style? Never one to stick to a recipe, Sura loves to improvise in the kitchen and inject her bakes with as much personality as possible. She loves to work with fragrant and floral flavours such as cardamom, rose and orange blossom.
Strengths and weaknesses: “My strengths lie in flavour and balancing of flavours and also making small and dainty bakes- but my weakness is large multi-tiered cakes.”
Strengths and weaknesses: “My strengths lie in flavour and balancing of flavours and also making small and dainty bakes- but my weakness is large multi-tiered cakes.”
The latest bake off trailer:
