The Final The Great British Bake Off

We've been baking for seven weeks now,

in our search to find Britain's finest amateur baker.

Our handpicked 12 have beaten, whisked, folded and, frankly, often wept,

and now we're down to our final three.

Will they rise under the heat of the judges' criticism,

or wilt like eggless sponges?

Well, it's all to play for and they will have to be at their very best if they want to emerge victorious.

It's the last week of the bake off and finalists Holly, Jo and Mary-Anne

face the three most gruelling challenges yet.

Pinch me, because I'm at the final!

I'd be kidding myself if I didn't say that I really do want to win.

There's no more next week. This is it.

At the end of these two days...

This is where it all goes wrong.

..one of these bakers...

Oh, good God!

I think nerves are a really, really big issue.

..Will be crowned the Great British Bake Off Champion 2011.

This actually has no flavour.

It's a classic! One of the best I've tasted.

In the final, you've managed to crack it.

Everything they've baked will be served up

in a special street party where the winner will be revealed.

And I am beyond measure delighted to announce

that the winner is...

Over the last seven weeks, the bakers have taken on everything

from biscuits, tarts, pies and pastries to cakes.

Only the best three have made it through to the final.

Jo's impressed the judges with her fantastic flavours

and consistency over the weeks.

-Nice flavours.

-Lovely thin pastry there.

-Sublime.

To be the finalist of the Great British Bake Off is a real big feat.

It'd be like having all your Christmases and birthdays in one,

to win this. It would be really amazing.

Holly has proved to be a master of meticulous presentation.

Thanks to her constant practise, she's scored highly most weeks.

I think they look stunning.

It's delicious, absolutely delicious.

Thank you.

Every week I've wanted to go to the next week - it's a competition,

you wouldn't do it unless you wanted to keep going,

and I'm in the finals, so I am happy!

Mary-Anne has earned her place in the final with her technical knowledge

and constant desire to experiment.

-I adore the way it looks.

-Thank you.

-It tastes absolutely divine.

I want me to win!

We'll have none of this sort of shy, retiring wallflower -

it's the final, there's no point being here unless you want to win.

Good morning, bakers,

and a hearty welcome to the final of The Great British Bake Off.

To be crowned champion,

you are going to need to bake like you have never baked before.

You're going to start off, of course, with your signature bake,

and we're asking you today, please, to make 12 millefeuille.

Each slice should contain three layers of pastry,

and two of filling.

Now, you can fill it with a flavouring of your choice,

and you can also decorate it in any manner you see fit.

Go mad, freestyle, but remember it's the final,

so nothing too off-piste.

OK, you've got 2.5 hours.

-On your marks, get set...

-Bake!

This is the bake off final, these people are the cream of the crop.

We expect them to rise to the occasion.

It's all about pushing the boundaries.

Now we've got to see absolute perfection.

They've really got to prove themselves,

and I'm afraid we're going to be very, very tough.

A millefeuille is a tower of three pastry layers sandwiched with cream.

It can be made with either rough puff or flaky pastry.

Mary-Anne and Jo are working with rough puff,

where small chunks of butter are added to the mixture.

I haven't impressed with pastry in the competition so far,

and I haven't made rough puff pastry since I was at school.

Holly is making flaky pastry

by delicately dotting small pieces of butter onto her rolled-out dough.

I'm doing a real shortcut which doesn't involve

anywhere near as much resting as you probably should do,

but, you know, we don't have the time.

So, it's rough puff?

Rough puff.

For her signature bake, Jo has spent weeks

perfecting a raspberry and blueberry millefeuille

with an orange zest-infused cream filling.

Visually, it's got to look good.

-You know me, I like my pretty colours.

-You've thought about this.

It's the final, so I think you're pushing the boat out.

At home, you do a new recipe and you don't think anything of it,

-but here, your nerves kick in a little bit.

-How many times have you made it at home, Jo?

-Not more than ten, but quite a few times.

-She sleeps by the oven!

-Yeah, I can imagine.

-She does, she curls up, sleeps by the oven.

I got married when I was 17, then we had our three sons.

And then, literally, I've been a mum and a wife since then.

Then the bake off came along,

and it's the first thing that I've ever done totally for me.

She's never really been able to shine.

She's never been able to do something for herself - she's always just been our mum.

She's always been there, cooked our dinners.

-You've had a bacon sandwich already.

-Now she's showing what she can do.

-So, what have you got to do in the final?

-That cream slice,

they're called millefeuille, or something, and I've got to do those.

She's a lot more confident than she was when she first started,

and she'll tell herself she can win.

I rate the achievement of being in the final to be a massive,

massive thing in my life.

Obviously, my most proudest achievement is my three boys,

but it is fantastic.

Jo's going for the raspberry coulis.

Some lovely flavours there, you seem to be quite pleased with those.

Basic flavours, but we're looking for the big three -

presentation, flavour, and then a good lamination in that puff itself.

All of them, they are very limited for time.

We've rushed them.

After all, this is the final.

Getting those crisp layers visible on the outside

is the main thing to go for,

so that's what we're going for.

Mary-Anne is filling hers with a ginger cream rippled with homemade lemon curd,

and topping them with traditional icing.

I'm going to puree some of the stem ginger

and fold that through.

Then I'll make a lemon curd and fold that through, so it's like a ripple.

And on the top you're going to do feathering?

I'm going to melt some fondant, and then do lines of yellow icing,

and then with a toothpick, just feather it,

so it has a nice pattern.

-Nice and subtle.

-Yes.

You make me very happy, Mary-Anne!

Mary Anne regularly bakes with her daughter.

The bake off has given her the chance to showcase her knowledge

and expand her already massive repertoire.

When I told people I'd actually got through to the final

they were really supportive and said, "We knew you could do it."

I've got cards and messages.

My husband's really pleased for me as he knows it means a lot to me.

It sounds corny, but just being in the final is really good,

and if anything else comes of that, it'll just be the cherry on the top.

Mary-Anne's competitive with herself as much as with anybody else,

so on a scale of one to ten she'd be an 11.

To get to the final, and to win it,

she would feel really proud of herself, and I feel really proud for her as well.

My daughter knows I'm in a competition

and she's been saying that she misses me.

I've told her that it all comes down to this weekend.

My dream scenario would be to finish in half the time and sit on my chair with a cup of coffee,

watching the other two flap around.

I don't think that's going to happen but you never know!

Mary-Anne, she's making the lemon and ginger millefeuille.

We know that some of her things have turned out on the rustic side.

She's promised to go dainty again, so that's a good thing.

It's not a lot of time to make 12 millefeuille, so I'm worried,

but I'm not as worried as I was on Friday

when I had a meltdown in my kitchen, and ended up crying.

Holly's millefeuille is layers of flaky pastry

sandwiched with fresh cream, caramel, and her special ingredient.

Quite different. I've never heard of banana liqueur, have you?

-Have you heard of it?

-Yeah, I have.

-Quite hard to get hold of.

-Yes.

I've had it in Florence Station in Italy. Yes, it was a long night.

-European!

-Yeah.

I notice that you've put vinegar into your pastry.

I sometimes use lemon juice, but not vinegar, because of the flavour.

I don't think you get it through. Because of the volume of pastry,

it's two teaspoons in there - it's not a lot.

-I've got used to doing it.

-It's for the breakdown -

to get the crumb - it starts to break down the gluten in the flour

-because it's an acid.

-Oh, OK.

-That's the only reason behind it.

-Don't have a breakdown, though.

-I won't.

Holly manages to juggle caring for her two young boys

with hours of obsessive baking practise.

Practise makes perfect. I've never been able to wing it at anything.

Holly doesn't do things by halves.

She fully committed to the bake off when she entered.

Yeah, she has been practising an awful lot.

She does her homework, she'll read the books,

I know that she's read Mary's bible.

Holly will keep doing something until she gets it right,

even if it means she doesn't get any sleep.

She'll just keep going - she's like the Duracell bunny.

'It's about creativity and about perfectionism, you know.'

It's just got to look so appetising,

and I think this is really precise stuff.

I'm actually more frightened than people think.

So Mary, Holly's millefeuille?

Yes, Holly has added vinegar to her pastry.

Now we had a problem when Mary-Anne added it into the pastry,

-she was a bit heavy-handed, we could taste it in the final result.

-Yes.

-We'll wait and see, won't we?

-There's no room for error at this stage.

I'm a little bit stressed to be truthful.

The oven's cut off!

Oh, good God!

OK, we're halfway through. Halfway through.

Why is my hand shaking?

No, I'm going to have to do those again now.

I was too busy watching something else and I burnt my hazelnuts

cos I've got so many things on the go that I sort of,

you've only got to not watch something for a minute and then it goes!

Time's a real problem today. It's a nightmare,

this is not something you try and attempt as an amateur.

I'm sure a professional could,

but we're not professionals.

These are still a bit warm for icing. I'm dithering.

Just five minutes in the freezer, I think,

cos I don't want to...

Argh do...can't, can't decide!

I'm not happy with how they look

so I'm going to do a praline,

blend it up to put over the top cos I think it'll look much nicer,

but obviously I'm never really made praline before.

Praline is a combination of nuts and caramelised sugar that is then crumbled or ground

to make a crunchy topping,

making the caramel is not as straightforward as it seems.

I think that's the way to do it.

I've never made it before.

To prevent caramel from crystallising it must not be stirred.

Oh, plonker!

There's so much going on all at once

and it's a real big juggling act, this is.

Yeah it's quite difficult to keep everything going.

It's going to be really heavy going for this hour.

I think nerves are a really, really big issue.

The most difficult part is getting the pastry right,

because this is the decoration. Yes, it needs to look pretty,

but if the pastry's not right it'll taste awful.

Too dark.

I'm going to save some nuts and I'm going to do it again, just in case,

because I don't actually know if that's too burnt or not.

There's a new caramel being made every 30 seconds.

Yeah, my nerves are very, very fraught.

That's half an hour left, bakers,

just half an hour remaining, thank you.

No, it's all going!

It's 15 minutes remaining on this challenge, bakers.

No way!

It's obviously all about balance and, you know, they're so delicate

that you have to be really careful as you're piping in because,

yeah, it's really, it's going to be quite tricky, I think.

Three minutes remaining, bakers. Three minutes on this challenge.

Oh, raspberries.

OK, that's time up for the most multi-layered,

this millefeuille of stress is over.

So, cakes to the end of the benches, please.

Considering the time I literally didn't think I was going to get them all done,

so, yeah, I'm pleased with how they look.

The great piping disaster of 2011.

Its got the yellow decoration but no feathering,

so I was a bit disappointed.

I'm quite pleased I got them finished in the time,

I had one minute to spare.

At least I finished them, and they look OK.

Never has pastry been so scrutinised.

It's quite tough puff pastry.

I can't taste the vinegar, I was looking for it.

You know, we've got to seek perfection here.

No, I know.

It's quite tough.

-Right.

-Normally with a knife you'd go through it, it'll crack.

Yeah, right.

-What you've done is essentially kneaded the puff...

-Right.

-It's built up the gluten.

You could have overdone it, but the flavours are lovely.

I really like the flavours, the neatness, the bake's good.

I think the ratio of filling and pastry is not quite right.

I think the pastry should have been rolled out more thinly,

but the whole finish is absolutely beautiful, it tastes wonderful.

Well done, Holly.

Thank you.

They look sort of friendly and homely.

Ended up having to make a praline

which I've never actually made before,

so I sort of, was a bit rushed doing that.

They taste really, really good and your pastry,

I love the buttery flavour coming through.

It would be not nearly as nice without the praline, would it?

No, excellent mistake!

It crumbles, actually, and it cracks which is nice.

Take more care on your piping with the cream.

Appearance-wise, it does need some work.

-Well done.

-Thank you.

Bit of a problem with the bake on some of these?

-I think they could have done with a couple of minutes more.

-Yeah.

There. It's just not baked long enough.

Now you've done feathering on the top?

I tried to, we had a bit of a disaster, the piping bag burst.

-It was pure bad luck that, wasn't it, Mary-Anne?

-Yeah.

I like the filling a lot.

Good.

Why do I like it?

It is on the sharp side,

but cos the fondant is very sweet on the top, very sweet,

and there's an awful lot of it, the two complement each other deliciously.

I don't like the filling.

Oh.

For me it's too bitter.

For a millefeuille it should be, for me, sweeter and creamier.

The pastry is under-baked and that spoils it for me.

Yeah.

That's the way things go.

I mean I can't, I don't want to dwell on it

because I don't want it to affect how I do in the technical bake,

so I appreciate that there are lessons learnt,

should have maybe had the oven higher,

but can't go back, so onward and upward.

The judges are scrutinising them a lot more than at the start,

they're literally getting down at eye level, checking everything, and so they should do,

at this stage they kind of want to get it right.

I feel quite positive going into the next round.

I don't think I had too much of a bad round really,

considering, you know, I really was under pressure with the praline.

I feel happy and I'm excited about the next challenge cos I actually quite like the technical bakes.

I like a surprise.

The time has come for the bakers

to take on their final technical challenge.

With everything to play for, their performance will be critical

if they want to stand a chance of being crowned bake off champion.

OK, ladies,

it's time to take cover now,

it is the much-feared surprise technical challenge.

As you all know by now this is judged blind,

so Mary and Paul, please vacate the tent area.

Off they go.

So our technical challenge today is our hardest yet.

Of course, it's the final.

It is the sachertorte.

Now this Austrian speciality is no mean feat.

You've got a really dense torte on top,

you need to get a nice, shiny slick of chocolate ganache,

and also, if that wasn't hard enough,

the recipe details we've given you are deliberate sparse and basic.

They're also in Austrian.

-Yeah.

-No they're not!

You've got two hours and 40 minutes to complete this challenge, ladies.

We know you're up to the task, all that remains to say is...

on your marks,

-get set...

-Bake!

I don't know what I'm doing, so it's not very good in the final is it really?

It'll be quite a hard challenge and I haven't actually made one of these before,

but I've made ganache and I have made a torte before,

so we'll see how it goes.

I haven't made a sachertorte before, but I've seen a picture,

how hard could it be?

So Paul, this is the sachertorte.

I think it's a great technical challenge. Yeah.

They've been given the ingredients from start to finish,

but not what to do with them.

Baking-wise we've given them no instructions,

not even how to line the tin or whatever,

we presented them with a tin so they have to line that carefully,

and we've given them a rough baking time.

The first challenge is to melt the chocolate correctly.

I usually melt chocolate in the microwave because

over water is slower.

To be honest I don't really know if there's a perfect way of doing it, but I do know

one - it has to be melted, and two - never add really, really super hot chocolate

to creamed butter and sugar, because if you do it melts the butter.

Made the mistake of walking away,

and so have to start again now,

but I've got a stopwatch

so I'm going to be checking it every 30 seconds this time, so...

hopefully we won't have a repeat of that.

The next stage is to combine the egg yolks with the chocolate.

I always try and add eggs in bit by bit otherwise it can curdle,

but, you know, I don't know if it's right or not,

but this is the way I'd do it at home, so...

Next the bakers whisk and mix the egg whites.

The trick is to keep them moist and flexible, so that along with the trapped air

they can help the cake to rise whilst keeping it light in texture.

The whole trick with this is to obviously get a really good,

see that's a really good stiff beat but if you over-whisk this,

it always says in the books it looks dry.

What they should do

is put about a third of the whisked egg whites in

and stir that in.

I'm just going to stir these in rather vigorously

to loosen the mixture up.

If they don't do it gently, they'll be losing volume all the time.

Well, you just have to do these cutting motions,

you don't want to lose the air.

I was going to say the only rising agent is the egg whites itself,

so they really do have to be careful folding in that last bit of egg white.

And they've got to do it until it's all one pale chocolate colour,

and if there are any flecks of egg white when we come to judge it,

we'll see those and it will give a rather rough finish.

It has to have a really flat top because you've obviously got to ice it

then write on it, so you don't want peaks.

That's about as flat as I can get it so that's going to go in now.

I'm just checking I put the flour in! I have!

There is just an hour left on the clock.

I'm going to go with that.

It's a bit cracked but some tortes have a bit of cracking on the top.

Oh, good God!

It's sunk a tiny bit since it came out of the oven,

which means it won't have a completely flat top.

The ganache presumably is there to hide the multitude of ills?

That's what I hope.

The bakers are instructed to use apricot jam

as a barrier between the cake and the icing,

which should help achieve a smooth, glossy finish.

I could use the jam as a way of covering up.

Breaking up a little bit, so I'm trying to glue it all down.

Next is the tricky topping... the ganache.

Now this is a fairly key stage, isn't it?

It is, this is where it all goes wrong.

You're meant to heat the cream

and then melt the chocolate in the cream.

So...

that's how it should work.

Famous last words!

Ganache is a glaze made of chocolate and cream.

It should have a silky-like texture, so that when poured on to the cake

it forms a perfectly flat and uniform layer.

See, this is the problem with my cake, is that

it has a little dip in the middle so we get a big pool of ganache.

As an eater I don't think that's a problem,

I think that's great, you get a massive bite of chocolate.

I'm happy with that but I think Mary would say, "You've messed with my recipe."

The traditional finish to a sachertorte

is the perfect icing of the word "sacher",

piped in milk chocolate on the top.

I'm feeling positively nauseous.

All you need to do is write six letters on a piece of the cake.

Yes.

You can do it.

Yes.

What you don't want is have a moment where you misspell.

Yeah. My daughter's called Sasha.

Well, you could misspell it

and you could say that it's an ode,

it's an ode to your daughter.

Bakers, you've got 15 minutes left.

Oh, that is lovely.

Oh, God, look at that!

I think it's one of those things where you just do it.

You just have to do it.

I'm going to stand back and let you go for it.

GASPS

You, you...

That's not...

That's your fault!

But it's no my fault! That's what you're feeling.

I'll do a swirl underneath, they'll never notice.

Do you know what?

I think that's beautiful, you just leave it as it is.

Good for you.

Ladies, you've got three minutes, three minutes.

Right...

Oh, I'm so rubbish at writing.

That's it.

Done.

Not great, child-like

but my handwriting is rubbish!

Well done, ladies.

The last technical challenge of the bake off is over.

It's time to bring out Paul and Mary so that the judging can commence.

As usual for the technical bake

Mary and Paul don't know whose cake is whose.

I think we have a problem with the spelling on that one, don't we?

-It's written in Austrian.

-Oh, right.

-Oh, well that explains all.

Old-fashioned Austrian.

-Shall we start from this side?

-Yeah.

The ganache could have been a bit thick but it has the right consistency,

and that cake looks pretty well done as well, doesn't it?

The cake looks very good.

Mmm...

Getting the apricot through, which is good.

I think it's a nice cake, that one.

-It's a nice cake, a little over-decorated.

-Yeah, it is.

Now this one, its got the nice ganache on this one.

Know what? I think that could have done with a bit longer bake.

There's a little mound at the very bottom here that isn't quite baked.

It's got more of a high mirror finish which is what you're looking for a sacher,

but there are bits of egg white floating through the mixture

and that's because it wasn't mixed in properly in the bowl.

That dips there, see?

There's a little ridge round the outside.

These two could both have done with just a little more,

five more minutes.

Well, we've had a jolly good taste and a jolly good look,

and in third place it's this one here.

Some of the egg white isn't mixed in really well,

it has a lovely shiny finish,

but it dips

and we've got a ridge round here,

but a lovely shiny icing.

In second place is this one.

Holly.

Overall it was a nice cake,

the dip was the problem with that one, but well done.

So obviously guess who's number one!

Well done. The cake of this one was the best.

A little over-decorated

but we're in for the taste

and that's why you came first.

Basically everyone's bakes were good but mine

was obviously slightly better,

so, yeah, it was excellent.

I thought mine looked OK, and I thought the handwriting looked OK,

so that was like where I think I excelled, not with the cake though!

I am really pleased for Jo

because she doesn't understand how good she is as a baker,

and it's nice for her to get recognition.

I still think anyone could win it.

It's the final day in this year's search for Britain's best amateur baker.

Today is the finale and they've got to do their very best

and they've got to impress us.

Yesterday Holly impressed with her banoffee-inspired millefeuille,

and Jo came first in the sachertorte challenge,

whilst Mary-Anne's bakes were both undercooked.

I think Holly and Jo are fairly level,

so it's Mary-Anne that's in the precarious position,

she really has to make something extremely special.

You know Mary-Anne is capable of going to great heights,

technically she is really brilliant.

This challenge marks the end of many weeks of competitive baking,

after which their efforts will be served to family and friends

at the Great British Bake Off street party.

It's going to become a pressure cooker for four hours,

and it's the one that really drives for it, and wants to win, will win.

Today it's up to them. May the very best one win.

Bakers, good morning, it's grand final day

this is your last showstopper challenge,

so what we'd like you to do

is to create a selection of contemporary petits fours.

Now ladies, the judges would like you please to present

three types of petit four, the first should include meringue,

the second sweet pastry,

and the third should be sponge-based.

They're not just looking for technical brilliance,

they're also looking for a really stunning visual presentation,

and they've given you a theme as well,

because it's the grand final,

which is British summertime.

And these will all be served at the bake off summer street party

and, most importantly, after four hours of baking

one of you will be crowned 2011's Great British Bake Off champion.

With that in mind, on your marks,

get set...

Bake.

Today they will be judged on their technical ability,

consistency of their bakes, delicious complementary flavours

and an original impressive summertime presentation.

Presentation is the key to this challenge,

but they must keep to the very best flavours,

so it's looking good and tasting good.

It's a bit worrying being this close,

I've been feeling nauseous since yesterday,

haven't had any breakfast, but I have caffeine so it's not all bad,

I'll just have to concentrate on what I'm doing,

and make sure that it's finesse is the watchword and not rustic.

Obviously the dream scenario would be to win, but you know what?

If I can do well and produce good things then that would be really good also.

It is really exciting, really exciting.

-What are you going to do?

-I've gone for things

that mean summer to me, one being Wimbledon,

and then I'm using the great British seaside as my inspiration,

because I love going to the seaside.

Holly is making strawberry and cream mousse meringues,

gooseberry and elderflower Bakewell tarts

and a Neapolitan ice cream sponges.

-Can you cope with all these things, will you be OK for time?

-There's a lot to do.

Mmm.

But I have timed it and I can do it.

Did you sleep, are you worried today?

Yesterday I was probably the most relaxed I've ever been, strangely.

I thought that would carry on today, but last night in bed my heart was racing.

I was thinking, "Stop it, why are you doing this to yourself?"

But you can't control your body, can you?

Obviously the nerves are there but I've tried to keep them down.

I'm just making my Victoria sandwich mixture, just an all-in-one method.

Jo is making mini Victoria sandwiches,

white chocolate and raspberry pistachio meringues

and mini banoffee pies.

I like the idea of this, I mean, it is a very British dish, the Victoria sponge certainly.

About three hours from potentially being crowned the winner

of this competition, how do you feel about that,

how does the prospect of winning feel?

Really, really unbelievable.

I can't even think that far, it makes me really nervous,

so I need to just focus on this and block that out.

If you think about it you might go into giggly Jo and giggly Jo might...

-Heart attack not-breathing Jo!

-Don't want that!

After my piping disasters yesterday, I'm showing no fear

and I'm doing piping in everything today,

just, I'm even going to pipe pastry, pipe fruit, pipe everything!

Mary-Anne is making summer fruit tarts,

strawberry and rhubarb cheesecakes

and blackcurrant meringues filled with everlasting syllabub.

This sounds spectacular, it really does.

Some flavours which are fantastic, I'd like to see how the elderflower works as well.

-You could win.

-I could.

-How do you feel?

Apprehensive,

I'm scared of winning, I think.

-Scared of winning? Why scared of winning?

-I don't know,

you'll be a winner then and everyone will be looking at you! And I'm so shy.

-They'll be looking at you anyway!

-Your name will ring for ever.

So let's start with Mary-Anne.

My only issue with Mary-Anne is sometimes

the ideas are great, the flavours sound great,

but she'll just fall at that last hurdle

when the overall appearance just doesn't hit the mark.

There's always a sense with her

they could turn out to be less petit four and more enorme four

because she does tend to create sort of quite vast spectacles.

-Yeah.

-Now what excites me about Holly's menu is the, the Napolitano.

She's got her beautiful little meringue,

she's got the little pastry,

but her layered Neapolitan ice cream could be too big.

Jo is doing a banoffee pie inspired tartlet,

so she's got the sweet crust, caramel she's glazing on the bottom, then this banana mousse.

I think that's very, very clever.

I like the idea of the caramel.

That banana mousse on the top,

oh, I'm really looking forward to that one.

Do you know they started today

all on an even keel, more or less,

and so they've got an awful lot to play for,

and they could rise or they could drop.

How's it going?

It's going OK. We're all up against it.

-Yeah.

-The time pressure, the finesse that's required and...

-Yeah.

-..the amount of different things you're having to do.

The bakers put their meringues in the oven first

as they will need to be cooked for two hours at a very low heat.

The aim is to slowly evaporate most of the water but not before

it's dissolved the sugar to leave a crispy, sweet structure.

Well, it's more drying than cooking,

and you don't want them to brown at all,

just want them to dry out.

With three hours to go,

Holly is moving on to rolling out the all-butter vanilla pastry

for her Bakewell tarts.

When I first started doing this competition I really, really liked pastry,

so my theory on pastry was thick was good.

I now know thick is bad, so...

I have learnt a lot!

I'm just going to try and make sure that the edges are all really tidy

because the last time we made mini tarts I got marked down

because my edges weren't particularly tidy.

I chose them initially cos I thought they're nice and deep,

you can get some good taste of the creme patissiere inside,

but now I'm thinking, "Oh, they're deep, they might stick,

"they might not want to come out,"

so they've got a liberal coating of cooking spray,

so I'm trying not to press the pastry too hard into the flutes.

Lady finalists, we are halfway through your last ever show,

off she goes, show stopper challenge.

You've had two hours, you've got two hours to go.

Mary-Anne has a novel method for achieving

the stripy surround sponge for her mini cheesecakes.

First she spreads out a sheet of red joconde-decor paste.

Now we take an adhesive scraper from your local DIY shop...

This is made from red food colouring, egg whites,

icing sugar, butter and flour.

Now I'm going to put this in the freezer so it can freeze up.

Like a strawberry facial!

I'm going to put the cake batter over the top

and bake that.

The guests are waiting to try the bakers' petits fours.

Among them, a few familiar faces.

For me it would be between

Mary-Anne and Jo,

but I think Jo might just tip the scales.

I think the person to win is Holly. I've had my money on her.

I'm sure they're all worthy winners.

I'm basically assembling my Neapolitan ice cream squares.

Look at that!

That is like a beautiful hotel luxury mattress.

Look at that. It's the first pinstripe sponge I've seen.

You seem very quiet, is that focus?

-Blind panic, actually.

-You go into yourself when you blind panic?

Well, normally I'm panicking by myself in the kitchen, but...

-Yes, on this programme we like to have panic in full view.

-Yes.

OK, bakers, that's just half an hour remaining before judgement.

The chocolate is to form a barrier between the sort of creamy syllabub

and the dry meringue, and hopefully keep the meringue nice and crisp.

Just, just there, oh, stay.

Talking to myself again, Sue.

This has been a consistent feature.

Yes.

A lot of chitter chatter. There's a lot of...

That's what happens when there's boys in the house and men,

they just tend to ignore you, so I talk to myself and the dog.

Mary-Anne, Jo, Holly, you've got ten minutes left.

This is the culmination of eight busy weeks.

Get the passion out on the plates and await the judges.

Holly, in order to talk to you I'll have to be fairly mobile,

cos I've noticed as well as creating these extraordinary petits fours,

-you've pretty much run a marathon...

-Yeah.

-..over the last 20 minutes.

I think I have.

I'm just going to have to get the bowl.

Over here!

Let's get fit with Holly!

I can't keep up and I haven't made petits fours.

Ladies, you've got three minutes for this, your final ever show stopper challenge.

(Oh, three minutes.)

OK, bakers, that's it, that's time up,

your bake off experience is over, you've done everything you can,

move your stuff to the end of your benches. Well done.

You all right, Mary-Anne?

Bomb site!

That is without question the most full on, intensive,

non-stop start to finish four hours of my life!

I'm pleased I went with what I did, actually.

I think I've shown enough skill, I've made jam.

Made a mousse.

Made Italian meringue butter cream.

Made brandy snaps. Made a ganache.

You know, really gone for it.

I do today believe in my bakes, I really do, actually.

I feel like I've really produced good stuff today.

I really hope they don't think I've gone over the top with my cake stand,

be disappointed if they're too mean!

So bakers,

well done.

You've completed your final show stoppers,

so it's time for the final judgement.

Holly, you're up first.

Holly has made strawberry and cream mousse meringues,

gooseberry and elderflower Bakewell tarts

and Neapolitan ice cream sponges.

That's a nice idea, it is a really nice idea, Holly.

The meringue is very good.

It's amazing.

It's got a nice chewiness to it. You know, that's delicious.

It melts really well, flavours and textures are good, the size is good.

Can we just turn that one upside down?

-Which one, this one?

-That one.

Yes, beautifully evenly baked.

That's good, the pastry is beautifully baked.

Have you got a jam layer?

I made gooseberry and elderflower jam.

-And on top of that you've got a frangipane?

-Yes.

Your frangipane has been lost.

Has it?

All you can taste is the jam.

So that moves us on to the ice cream which is the Neapolitan style sponge.

It's a nice idea.

I think it's a nice idea but I think it's really too big,

and I think that you've shown us lots of skills,

I love seeing that brandy snap, but it's totally lost,

you wouldn't recognise it has a brandy snap.

I find that a little disappointing.

It's a bit dry.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

If they were thinner, same amount of filling,

same amount of icing, would have been a lot better.

This actually has no flavour.

That's my biggest issue I think.

It's been overwhelmed by the butter cream on the top.

It's a lovely display, it's very original, you've thought it all out.

-Well done, Holly.

-Thank you.

Well done, Holly.

Jo has made mini Victoria sandwiches,

white chocolate and raspberry pistachio meringues

and mini banoffee pies.

Jo, what a lovely way to present cakes

for perhaps summer in the garden.

Don't those look inviting?

You're a good girl, you've got them all the right balance.

They match, don't they?

They do, because you've got the extra height,

what you've done is you've shrunk the size,

so overall the balance is the same.

Display, absolutely fantastic,

that would be seen in any five-star hotel in their afternoon tea area for sure.

Mmm.

It's a nice light bake, that gentle flavour

of the fruit, it doesn't kick you in the teeth.

Vitoria sponge is an absolute classic,

which is one of the best that I've tasted,

and it's rather nice to have it that size.

If I just move on to this meringue.

That really works, it dances on your tongue.

Those raspberries, once you break through the meringue

it hits your tongue, ding a ling a ling,

and sets off everything. That's amazing.

The meringue is cooked for the right time.

It's still got that nice chewiness to it,

and it's a nice surprise to find

decent-sized pieces of pistachio in it.

Yeah. Now the one actually I'm looking forward to is this one,

which is the banoffee-style tart.

It's a good bake.

You needed to work the dough a bit more so it's more stable.

Oh!

That's good, that.

That is superb.

They're very, very short

and you would have to serve those a bit chilled.

It's very, very soft and quite difficult to eat.

Yeah, I totally agree

but that's the only criticism of those three.

-Thank you so much.

-Well done, Jo.

-Thank you.

Mary-Anne has made strawberry and rhubarb cheesecakes,

summer fruit tarts

and blackcurrant meringues filled with everlasting syllabub.

Well, they certainly look "pick your own",

covered in beautiful English fruits.

But they look amazing, I love the idea of the fruits on the top of each one.

Shall we try this one first?

-That's delicious.

-Thank you.

It's not too sweet either. It's creamy and not too sweet.

It's a perfect home bake.

Thank you very much.

It's a bit of a hotel bake.

Well, do you know, we can do good things at home,

and then we come to this very nice, beautiful little tart.

-The pastry is actually rather thick.

-Yeah.

Just too much pastry, isn't it?

-It hasn't worked.

-No.

That's a bit of a shame that, actually.

And the creme patissiere,

I could have done with a bit more vanilla in it.

Mmm. Shall we try this one?

Mary-Anne, I like the way you didn't use food colouring,

you used freeze-dried blackcurrant powder

which has given it a lovely colour.

What's in that syllabub?

It's a sweet dessert wine and brandy.

It's too alcoholic.

You need to burn that off before you use it inside of cream.

It's destroyed any flavour that you wanted to achieve in that.

It's a huge disappointment to me.

I think it's absolutely lovely,

and the pure alcohol is doing me a lot of good!

I think that's really lovely.

I couldn't disagree more strongly with Mary in my life,

because I think the interior of that is revolting to me.

I just don't get it at all.

I'll have a bit more to disagree again.

Easy Mary, remember what the doctor said!

But the whole presentation is absolutely stunning.

-Well done.

-Thank you.

Thank you, well done.

As Paul and Mary deliberate,

our finalists take their bakes to share with past bakers, family and friends

at the Great British Bake off street party.

Excuse me, Mr Hollywood,

"revolting" for a syllabub?

And he said that you couldn't have that amount of alcohol in it.

It's a 500-year-old recipe and I don't think a revolting recipe

would last that long if it was revolting.

I would hope they're going to look at yesterday

and also look at every week, you know,

that would be the right thing to do, but I don't know.

I just had no nerves at all today, I just, honestly and truly

thoroughly enjoyed every single moment of it.

Now it's fair to say we've got three really worthy finalists, but going into this final challenge,

Mary-Anne needed to do something extraordinary.

Everything in the right proportion

but the flavours weren't quite there.

And you have said to her pretty much every bake off,

"make it dainty, make it dainty", and she did.

She did, she nailed it.

She came up with the goods.

-Unfortunately she lacked that finesse to finish it off with the flavour as well.

-Yeah.

She's a rough diamond.

She's very good at what she does,

she just needs honing down and we'd have a fantastic baker.

Yesterday we were in a situation where both Holly and Jo

were pretty much neck and neck.

Yeah, for me, when I look at Holly I see technically the ability,

she is so precise, for instance,

you only have to look at that meringue nest to realise she's done the peaks,

every one of those would be perfect.

When you look at macaroons, if you remember, she did the lollipops...

Yeah.

The lines round the lollipops,

the display was so good.

We come to the tart, and that little tart was fine.

The flavouring of the elderflower and the gooseberries, you know,

all very summertime which is what we were after,

but it absolutely drowned

the flavour of the almonds,

and it just didn't really work.

And then we come to Jo who hasn't always been particularly meticulous,

but what she sometimes lacks in the consistency of the aesthetic

she makes up for in these big flavours.

The meringue was great,

the raspberry inside, the freeze-dried raspberry,

when you hit that, the dryness of the raspberry in the meringue hasn't hit the moisture yet,

so as soon as it hits your tongue, bam, bam, bam, bam,

leaping up and down, beautiful flavours.

She has been rather simple with her recipes.

She's not been too elaborate.

She's a really good home baker

who has advanced through every single session.

-Yeah.

-Where she falls down is technically she follows some recipes

and falls down at the last minute, and that includes profiteroles,

that includes some cakes she's...

-It wasn't her recipe, it was the actual structure!

-The tower, yeah!

Her flavours are always good,

what she lacks in sometimes is that little bit

of technical expertise and precision to actually come through with it,

whereas when you look at Holly she's been technically very good,

although sometimes she lacks that depth of flavour.

Yeah.

So between them you've gotta choose which particular skill you're going to go for.

I wouldn't want to be you.

I think very, very little separates them and I think,

the pair of you need to deliberate and look at the signature bakes,

the technical bakes, the show stoppers

and to come up with a worthy champion.

It is going to be extremely difficult.

After a long discussion, and taking into account eight weeks of baking,

Mary and Paul were in total agreement

over who should be crowned the Great British Bake Off champion.

Each of our finalists has beaten thousands of other amateur bakers to be here,

baked for over 60 hours in the marquee,

produced hundreds of pastries, biscuits and cakes,

and now finally one of them will be crowned

the Great British Bake Off champion.

Welcome to this, the final

of the Great British Bake Off 2011,

and can I start by asking our three lovely finalists

to take their walk of honour up to their places.

The finalists!

Holly, Jo and Mary-Anne.

Who-hoo! Yay!

Ladies and gentlemen, family, friends

and our 12 beloved bakers past and present,

I'm delighted to say that Paul and Mary have finally

reached a verdict,

and I am utterly beyond measure delighted to announce

that the winner

of the 2011 Great British Bake Off

is...

Jo!

I knew it!

Well done.

-It couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

-Thank you.

Jo's an excellent winner. She produces beautiful food, beautiful looking, beautiful tasting,

and hopefully she will start to get the hint she is a very good baker.

It's been fun and it's been hard work in equal measures,

and I'm so glad that I wrote on that application form and that I...

You know, I so nearly didn't.

Jo out of everyone

had the furthest to go,

her progression in the whole bake off has just been superb,

and when it came to the final,

the flavour of that banana mousse, it was just unbelievable.

Technical ability, and the precision,

and the flavour all thrown in. Fantastic.

She got better and better and she made the three bakes,

they all looked so pretty and polished,

but the most important thing of all, each one tasted absolutely superb.

She has achieved great heights, the winner,

I hope she's chuffed to bits.

Oh! Mmm. I feel really, really emotional at the moment.

I really, just feel totally overwhelmed.

Total delight.

I do feel really proud, really, really proud of myself.

You did it!

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