Class of 2015 The Great British Bake Off

In 2015, the nation was gripped by a baking frenzy.

I remember just, sort of, looking around at everyone else

and thinking, "Oh, God. They all look really good."

Over 15 million people tuned in to see Britain's best amateur bakers

commence culinary combat...

If I leave, you're coming with me.

..as they strived to be named winner of the Great British Bake Off.

I can only taste fear in my mouth right now.

You could sense that, kind of, tension in the air.

-Bakes went up...

-No! You've got to be kidding.

I can't make one of those.

-Sorry.

-Dreams came crashing down.

I maybe did a mistake by doing that.

-And difficult decisions were made.

-Is that enough time for this?

-Is there any point doing this?

-Yes.

-While Mary and Paul wrestled to separate...

-There we go.

..the wheat from the chaff.

I'll try to do that, I'll take you down with my eyes.

Two can play at THAT game, Paul.

What IS that on the top?

Now the bakers will be raising the gingham cloth

-on what really happened...

-Oh, yeah.

..in the big white tent...

Still haven't washed the hand.

One word - disgusting.

..and how cake really can change your life.

I knew at that point that I wouldn't be the same person again.

This... GROANING

-..is...

-Come on!

..the class of 2015.

I'd sooner have another baby!

I really would.

On a nippy spring morning in 2015,

12 freshfaced bakers were making their way through the Berkshire

countryside. Headed to a secret dell, where time has no meaning,

and your fate depends on cake.

The Bake Off tent awaited their arrival.

The first moments of seeing this place, it was like...

ooh, it's a sort of national icon,

you know, sort of looming over us,

this great white tent.

It was a pinch-myself moment.

I was like, "Oh, that's the tent."

You see the spikes of the tent, the top of it.

It's just, "oh, my god, this is real."

It's not always had those things on it. Has it really?

I'm going to go back and check at home. I don't think it has.

I think you're mistaken.

No amount of practice could have prepared them

as, for the first time, they made their way inside.

It was a bit like a military march, you're paired off, as you were,

you had to keep in step and look ahead. Don't look at your feet.

It's a bit like Narnia. You open the doors, you walk in,

and it's a whole other world when you're in there.

You know that dream where people are walking into an exam naked?

It's that dream, except you're walking into a tent,

and you don't know how to bake.

I was just actually delighted that you didn't do any of the washing-up!

The first morning I slept in

and was half an hour late.

In a way, I'm quite glad, cos I didn't have time to get nervous

and it was, sort of, just, "In you go. Do it!"

Welcome, everybody, to the tent.

I know you've been practising probably for months -

-that's all over.

-So for the very first time,

-on your marks...

-Get set...

-BAKE!

As soon as they say that, I think it's full steam ahead.

You're baking for your life at that point.

There's that silence for about 10, 15 minutes.

All you can hear is bowls clanging, paperwork going, things coming out,

things pouring in. You've got to get into concentration mode.

You've got to forget the cameras, forget Mel, forget Paul, Mary, Sue,

and just get stuck into what you've got to do.

The oven's on. The process has started.

In a rare generous moment, the judges had set them a basic Madeira

-for the first challenge.

-I guess they want you to, sort of,

settle into the environment and they just want something simple and

traditional. Nothing too out-there.

You're so nervous. If they gave you something elaborate to make for the

first cake, I think everyone would have just crumbled and legged it.

My hands are shaking so much, it's really difficult to cut.

And the pressure was certainly getting to Flora.

Aargh!

I forgot to set the oven because at home we've got an Aga.

Oh, well.

I'm just so used to having an oven that's on all the time,

and I hadn't factored that in.

You're thinking about other things.

Hopefully it's got enough time to cook.

Fingers crossed, otherwise I'll be in trouble.

Something so stable as a Madeira cake, you can't alter too much,

but yet you had to give it your own twist.

I'm making a gin and tonic Madeira cake.

-That's original.

-Is it?

Are you actually putting gin into the cake?

Yeah. A little bit. It's more of a gin and tonic glaze than it is

-gin in the cake.

-Putting in it in the top's more of a gesture

-than anything else.

-Yeah.

If you're going to do a gin and tonic Madeira cake,

it has to taste of either gin or tonic.

And mine tasted of neither.

I always serve gin and tonic with just a little bit of regret.

-Oh, really?

-Just a little bit.

I've got plenty of that!

Madeira cake should be moist, dense,

and have a prominent split or crack down its top.

Looking for a crack!

The crack.

-I'm happy with that.

-I got a crack.

I don't think it was big enough, but it was there.

What's happened with the crack?

Mine had two...quite little ones.

One crack, bad. Two cracks better.

-Two cracks better.

-I got three on mine.

Famous in Leeds, is the three-crack Madeira.

And Mary didn't just want to see the bakers' cracks,

she'd also asked for candied peel.

She was very sure that your crystallised fruit

should drop and ping.

Now, you just listen as I drop this on the plate.

PING!

That's how it should be. This is proper candied.

It's not sticky and wet.

That's a Bake Off first, the candied drop test.

I've never seen you do that before, Bez.

I knew that it should snap, or it should make that sound.

'But I didn't think about doing the drop test.'

But when she did that, I was like, "Get in, Mary!"

Paul just wobbled mine a bit and said, "They're not going to make

"a sound when these drop on the plate, are they, Dorret?"

I'm not sure how crisp your candied peel on the top...

-Not very.

-I feel like I should do that with all pieces of crystallised

fruit. Whenever. Even in supermarkets.

Oh, I like that.

-That's amazing.

-You've done these before, haven't you?

I remember looking over at Marie's,

and she did this really beautiful citrusy Madeira.

I think she definitely nailed the classic.

Oh, it's lovely. It needs nothing else.

It was typical, traditional, real Madeira cake.

-Well done.

-Can I take the pith, Marie?

-Of course you can, yes.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

But a traditional Madeira wasn't appealing to all.

Madeira cake, to me, is quite, sort of, a boring cake.

So I was kind of thinking of things to make it slightly different.

I'm just wondering, when I think of Madeira cake -

half chocolate and half lime, it isn't, to me, a Madeira cake.

I had a few issues with my glaze.

I was sitting there waiting for the judging,

they kind of gave the cake a tap.

I'm like, "That's kind of set a bit."

What IS that on the top?!

Yeah, my glaze sort of turned into caramel a little bit.

Slightly!

My glaze was glacier.

Baking isn't as simple as A, B, C.

It's more like C, D, E.

Chemistry, design and - last year - a lot of engineering.

Oh, I'm too nervous for construction.

It was a very big year for baking engineering, and it made me regret,

massively, not finishing my architecture degree.

In week two, the challenge of building a box

out of buttery biscuits caused Mat...

It's a fire engine. Look at that! Come on. Come on! Come on!

..and Sandy to bring their work into the tent.

I've got my templates.

I came up with the idea and a couple of colleagues at work helped me

perfect it. God bless the IT department at school.

I'm going to market these templates.

It's going to put Bradford on the map, is this box.

The stakes were raised...

This is about to get tech.

..along with the cheesecakes a few weeks later in Desserts and Puddings.

That was one I really enjoyed, the cheesecake towers, because

it was one of those, it's an illusion, almost.

And that was quite... it's quite a lot of fun.

That reaction I remember I got from my children, I was like,

"If I can just get that reaction off Paul and Mary - just that one.

"I don't need them to scream and say 'Wow, Mummy! That's amazing!'

I just need them to say, "Oh, that's good."

That looks amazing.

But nothing topped the giddy heights of the eclairs

in the Patisserie Showstopper, when the bakers were asked to make

a Religieuse a l'ancienne.

When I found out I was going to have to make a Religieuse a l'ancienne,

I was like, "What the heck is a Religieuse a l'ancienne?"

I looked at it on screen and I was like, "No!

"You've got to be kidding! I can't make one of those!"

Now, this is a choux mountain in the shape of a nun.

What IS the nun thing about?

That very tiny top bit is the bit that, supposedly, looks like a nun.

You've got the fat body and the small head.

And then you've just got eclairs underneath.

So... I don't know, is this a nun on stilts?

Is this your first nun?

No, she's my 8th nun.

-Gosh, you get through them.

-I'm just dreading construction.

There's a lot of elements that could have gone wrong.

And for me, them elements, they DID go wrong.

It seems a bit weird, a tower made of eclairs.

Eclairs don't really strike me as, you know, solid building blocks.

The bigger you tried to make it, the more chance of it falling down.

Get back!

Every time we were asked to do something really upwards,

I kind of thought, "How can I make it go up, and scale it down?"

Everybody was doing eclairs that were, kind of, that big,

and I did half the size. I thought,

"Well, they'll get height, they just won't get THAT much height."

Stop shaking! Stop shaking!

A lot of the time I just wanted to punch my fist through the whole thing.

Oh, my God.

I'm going to be so glad when this stupid nun thing is done.

At least I've got it standing.

Once we finished the bake, we were all really conscious

of how hot it was, and how cream doesn't really like to last in heat.

When made correctly...

Light steps, light steps.

..Religieuse a l'ancienne should stand for a few hours

as a banquet centrepiece. But feeling the pressure of judging,

some of the nuns needed a lie down.

It just took on that moisture.

The weight was too much for the bottom layer, and down it went.

I made it twice before we came here, and I've made it twice afterwards.

And they've all collapsed within a few minutes.

The only one that stayed up was the one I cooked down there.

And that wasn't the end of Ian's architectural excellence,

as week after week, he invented new ways

of combining baking with metalwork.

I'm intrigued by this. Did you make this?

I did, yes. I got some bent aluminium sheets,

and it's going to have some shortbread...gets wrapped

around here, and then this goes around the outside.

And then it's baked like that.

It all comes out as a complete cylinder.

Ian rocked out some Heath Robinsons!

I was supposed to be an engineer in life, generally,

and I kind of rebelled and went to photography.

So it was like, actually, maybe there is a bit of an engineer in me.

And it really came out in the tent.

I'd always ask Ian, "What have you got? What have you made?"

Cos he's got an angle grinder at home.

Ian's kitchen must be a bit more like a workshop.

Every week there was another bit of metalwork that he produced.

There is Ian...with an engineered creation,

steel contraptions to lay his bread over to make this petal.

'And I scrunch up pieces of tinfoil!'

-Artisan.

-Just think, he came on the train as well, Ian,

and the things he'd carry!

I'm making the chocolate well today.

It's going to be cast in here, out of chocolate.

This is going to make a handle,

on the end of which is going to be a little bucket,

which is going to go down into the well.

They were so many stages I thought, "It could really go wrong here."

Do you think it's precarious enough?

But when it came to judging, all went well.

I think you get full marks for originality.

I don't think I'll ever see a well like this again.

Oh!

-It's going in.

-That is amazing.

It was very nice when Bake Off finally came on the screen,

cos I'd been coming in and out of this DIY shop for a long time.

So it was nice when they were like, "Oh, right, yeah!"

I was like, "Guys,

"I owe you a huge debt of thanks for all the stuff you've helped me create."

Ian's constructions looked impressive,

but to succeed in the tent, there is one thing even more important.

It's all down to the flavour.

Flavour can never be ignored.

Flavour is a must. GOOD flavour is a must.

Because we had a bit of a garden theme going on, lots of herbs.

Fennel works really well. A little bit of heat in there, as well.

I think that's a nice biscotti.

There's times when I got it really right.

But sometimes I got it horribly wrong, and they said,

"Don't ever feed me that, ever again."

Mainly my bubble gum.

How are you getting that bubble gum flavour?

-Bubble gum essence.

-Oh, this is going to take me right back.

I absolutely love candy and sweets.

These are my two favourite flavours.

It puts a smile on your face.

Yeah, it's quite...nostalgic.

I may have gone slightly heavy-handed,

maybe a drop or ten too many.

It tastes like bubble gum.

Oh, yeah.

It's bubble gum, isn't it?!

-That is potent.

-I am afraid it's not quite my favourite.

It made my kids happy. And I've learnt that just cos it made

your kids happy, it doesn't mean it belongs in the tent!

When it came to baking innovation, body-builder Ugne raised the bar,

fusing her love of health and fitness

with a taste for indulgent cake.

Ugne combined worlds,

two different worlds together,

to come up with a new world.

Today I went for not only sugar-free,

I went for gluten-free as well.

-Hello!

-I'm using quinoa flour, almond flour and hazelnut flour.

I tried to go less fats, I tried to be more healthy with that cake.

I maybe did a mistake by doing that, but I just wanted to go, again,

what was close to my heart.

The top layer broke.

-I was disappointed.

-And when it came to judging, so was Mary.

You've made yourself extra challenges that we didn't ask for.

I mean, you haven't got a classic flour in there.

The chocolate part is very, very close-textured

and it tastes a little bit bitter.

You put your heart and soul onto the plate in front of them,

and it's tough when your heart and your soul, and your hard work

are being rejected.

And Ugne wasn't the only one whose work was rejected.

Time and time again, Flora was told

that the judges didn't want what she'd made,

but that was because she kept going off brief.

You're doing this as a creme brulee challenge?

I'm doing tuiles as a creme brulee challenge,

and I'm doing rhubarb crisps as a creme brulee challenge.

She had the confidence to go away from the brief.

I was never confident enough to say, "I can do a bit of this,

"add a bit of that. Maybe adding a few cakes on the side.

"Some macarons on top."

We called it Florification.

-What are you making?

-Some tuile cigars.

You know the bit where we asked you to the challenge?

-The challenge bit. The main bit. Like, the thing.

-The cream horns.

The horn bit - have you started that?

I think, just from week one, I kept adding things.

I think you attempt too many things.

One should remember it's cream horns,

-and not spend too much time on the extras.

-Sorry.

But when it came to pastry week,

Flora decided to break from tradition,

and when asked to make vol-au-vents, she actually just made vol-au-vents.

The flavour is stunning.

And we haven't got any extra things stuck on the side.

Well done.

After leaving the tent, Flora deferred to university degree

and embraced all things edible.

And today she is seeing the designs

of her own cookbook for the first time.

That's so gorgeous!

I'm not doing things that a 20-year-old would normally do.

The book has been, kind of, the main time-consuming thing.

I buy so many cookbooks,

and to be able to create my own has been so much fun.

-This is so pretty.

-Yep.

That might be my favourite double-page spread.

It's been a blooming exhausting year, but it's been great and...

I feel very lucky to have had it.

It might look idyllic, but beneath the sunlit canvas

two discerning judges waited to taste perfection.

-MEL, IMITATING PAUL:

-Is it overworked?

-It's overworked.

I hope it's not overbaked.

I'm not a royalist, so Mary's as close to my Queen as possible.

When have I ever had tarragon and apple?

And I like it.

If it wasn't for Mary and Paul, Bake Off would be a group of friends

meeting in a tent to eat cake.

Actually, that sounds great!

At the beginning I was looking forward to the judging.

I wanted to hear what they thought about my bakes,

and how good they thought I was.

They are crisp, I'm not getting much flavour there.

As the bakes progressed and the weeks progress,

each individual bake it was like, "Oh, no, it's judging."

I am getting a flavour, it's just I don't like the flavour.

OK.

'That, like, cold sweat feeling you get coming on,'

as Paul and Mary are about to come to your bench.

I can smell a lot of baking powder.

Here we go.

But once they've eaten it, it's that pause.

It's that god-awful pause in between.

They, kind of, like, look at each other.

And then they'll taste it again. Then look towards you.

You definitely feel it, yeah,

especially when it's Paul and he's looking at you with those eyes.

The look is fundamentally based on a raised eyebrow.

And that's a bad look.

And then you wait, and you're like...

But you just never know whether it's the, "I don't like it - I love it,"

or is it, "I really don't like it",

and there's nothing good coming out after this sentence?

-I don't like that.

-OK.

-I love them.

-Oh!

Sometimes Paul's criticism continues

rather a lot longer than is necessary.

When Alvin presented his collapsed cheesecake,

the Hollywood didn't hold back.

-It is a bit of a mess. Was it still hot?

-Warm, I think.

-But, yes.

-That wouldn't help the meringue.

Your base has turned out a bit like birdseed.

It just all falls apart.

It's very, very crumbly.

You feel like saying, "OK...! Leave it, shall we?!"

A little clumsy, I think. Bad time management we'll put that down to.

-OK.

-Paul says something bad it's like, fair enough, you know,

you kind of expect that. But if Mary says something bad then, uh-oh,

-this is a problem.

-And she wasn't awash with compliments for Sandy's

liquorice creme brulee.

I can see that the...

..actual custard is...

-hasn't set.

-Creme bru-LAKE was the terminology used,

and I think that could catch on.

-That's soup. That's not custard.

-Bru-LAKE again.

How did you do that?

Well, they were in the oven for half an hour.

Was it on?

It was just that the custard didn't set.

The flavours were there.

Mary doesn't like liquorice, but then, not everybody does.

When you stir the custard with the liquorice, it overpowers it, for me.

Right. I still stand by it.

I am stronghold that liquorice creme brulee works,

and I defy anybody to say it doesn't.

Except Mary Berry, when she said it didn't.

Cos that was my downfall, and I was out.

There are 7.4 billion people in the world,

so the chances of ever meeting your doppelganger are remote, at best.

Unfortunately for Paul the baker,

his happened to be one of the judges.

It was very obvious, right from the start, that Paul, OUR baker,

and Paul, "the" baker, were very, very similar.

I said to my wife that I was going to take the beard off.

And she said, "Don't do that, that's you - why are you changing?"

I says, "Because it's going to be picked on."

"You never know, it might not." Lo and behold, yeah, it was.

-Quite a lot.

-You know that you have

the same facial hair as Paul Hollywood? You have the same name.

I've been waiting for someone to say that.

What is going on, Paul?

-I'm slightly younger.

-Two Pauls were separated at birth.

-Hello, Paul.

-Hi, Paul.

We're both men, we both like baking,

er, both got grey hair, both got the goatees, as such.

I think that's about it, though, really. There's not many more

similarities. Oh, we're both called Paul, obviously.

Just like Mr Hollywood, Paul has a natural talent with yeast.

When it came to bread week,

his Showstopper was the pride of the tent.

I'm making a lion sculpture, it's called King Of The Jungle.

'I knew straightaway it had to be some form of animal.'

I've got cats, I looked at cats, and I thought,

what's the biggest cat? King of the jungle's the lion.

You've got to bring out those features, all right,

which is the ears, it's the eyes,

it's the nose. It's the teeth, it's the claws.

If you say you're going to do a lion, it's got to look like a lion,

and not a dog or something like that.

I think he told us what he was making, and I was like,

"I really can't see how that's going to work."

The problem with dough is, it's got a life of its own.

It'll start to move about.

I have to support it in some areas with foil while it's baking.

Everything had gone according to plan.

THEY GROWL

And then you're just hearing the whispers and comments going around,

-'and the looks I was getting.'

-That is one of the best things

I've seen in bread, ever.

-Wow.

-That is absolutely fantastic.

It's knowledge of dough, it's how you manipulate it,

it's got yeast in, it's edible. Just to do that

with a salt dough is hard enough.

To do it with a risen dough...

I wouldn't have attempted anything like that.

When it came to the final announcement,

Mr Hollywood was so impressed he created an entirely new award.

I'm going to start with something we've actually never done before,

which is give out a special commendation.

And this goes to Paul because Paul has never, ever, in his life,

seen a bread sculpture as magnificent as that one,

so round of applause, and congratulations.

I think everyone was taken by that.

No-one was expecting that, cos it's never been done before.

I knew I had something special there. And as it was, I did.

Paul's special commendation wasn't the only prize being given out.

Every week the judges would argue it out to name one person Star Baker.

'I can't speak for the others,'

I certainly would have liked to have been Star Baker.

You want to be on the top. Everybody wants to be on the top.

I didn't want to admit that I wanted Star Baker, I was just like,

"I'm happy just to get through."

If you get Star Baker, "Yes! I got Star Baker!"

Ian was thanking his lucky stars when he went on a winning streak.

Ian, you are Star Baker. Well done.

You know, week one, I thought I was going home.

So to then pick it up and be Star Baker in week two, it was like,

"Wow, that wasn't expected."

And then, week three. "Jeez, this is REALLY unexpected."

And then to go and get a third time in week four

really, really surprised me.

Ian, for the third time running, you are Star Baker.

-Well done.

-I think everybody was like, "Hmm, Ian, calm down."

I remember saying to Ian, "Come on, give it up!

"Let us have it!"

So, by "free-from" week, everyone was gunning for him.

All of us sort of rallied together and were like, "Right,

"we're going to get him this week."

I'll do whatever you're doing, Ian.

It was like a revolution, like,

"Let's take his crown, come on, guys!

"He can't have it every single week."

Are you thinking in terms of...

"Right, who's my competition?"

Well, the competition's Ian, I think.

It could go wrong for him at any time.

Slightly hoping.

By the time we went into week five, they wanted me to have

an industrial accident with my mixer or, I don't know,

chop the end of my finger off.

I kind of feel like I need to do a good job today.

-You're feeling the presh?

-Hmm, yeah.

I was quite relaxed the last couple of weeks.

You really wanted to be like, "Oh, I hate you, Ian, doing so well."

But you couldn't. Because he was so nice about it.

But, thankfully for the rest of the bakers,

Nadiya's stunning ice-cream roll broke Ian's winning roll,

when she was awarded Star Baker.

Congratulations.

I remember getting it and it was like, "Oh, you took Ian's crown."

I was like, "Yeah, I'm just happy to get Star Baker."

Star Baker is the pinnacle of baking achievement in the tent.

On the other hand, there is an unofficial award

that possibly even tops it.

Everyone is looking for Star Baker. The Hollywood handshake is,

in my book, is a little bit extra. It's like a personal touch.

-Thank you very much.

-Oh, the handshake.

-Thank you.

-Well done.

Their eyes go around the room.

SHE MOUTHS

There's nothing quite like it. I still haven't washed the hand.

I have washed the hand. That would be gross!

That's fantastic.

-Really well done.

-Thank you.

-Oh, the handshake.

-Thanks a lot.

When you see the hand coming up, and then you want your hand

to come up and you're thinking, "Oh, if he bails,

"I'll just go for my hair."

Oh!

I remember him taking my hand and I kind of went,

"You're not going anywhere!

"I'm keeping that handshake!"

(Handshake. I got a handshake.)

My sister was laughing, saying, "You weren't going to let go, were you?"

I was like, "I really wasn't. He had to pull away."

The prospect of serving a well-practised bake

for Mary and Paul is daunting enough,

but in the Technical Challenges, the bakers didn't even know

what recipe lurked beneath the chequered cloth.

It's a bit like an unseen exam, you know,

you go into an exam and you turn the paper over and...

Have I done enough revision?

I can't even look at gingham any more without vomiting.

You're desperate for a little bit of wind,

so a bit of a corner goes up and you can have a look underneath.

But then I think, "Why am I looking?

"It doesn't even matter. If I see flour and something else,

"I still won't know what it is!"

Any words of advice?

Read the recipe thoroughly.

And then try and visualise exactly what it should look like at the end.

And we're going to ask that you leave now,

and attend that intergenerational foam party in Woking

I know you're gagging on going to.

-Foam up!

-Remember, loads of bubble, lots of trouble.

'Despite Mary and Paul having left the tent,

'their presence was always felt in their sparse recipes.'

It's quite a weird thing, you don't really get time to baking

with instructions missing. A lot of baking books make it a bit too easy.

The instructions are very vague.

Sort of, "Make this, make that."

So you have to know how to make it.

Unless, accidentally, they printed the full recipe with a picture,

that is the only thing that could have helped me.

You can't talk, you can't confer with each other or anything.

'But you do look around. You do see what other people are doing.'

I've been looking around constantly.

Help me cheat!

There's people going around saying "shhh!" as soon as they see you.

And you always think that people

can't see you, even though you're in a room full of cameras.

-Oh!

-No snooping!

You just had to sort of bring all your baking knowledge

together and come up with what you think it should be, or, luckily,

it was something that you've already done.

I have made baguettes before.

How hard can it be?

We used to call it "tent head" in there.

When you think you know something, because you're so stressed,

you almost forget everything you ever knew.

I'm trying to think in my head, a baguette,

a baguette doesn't have that - a baguette has that.

I might have seen, like, 20 baguettes over the weekend

or, you know, been in a shop with them, but you think,

"I cannot picture a baguette."

Right or wrong, we'll soon find out.

And if it was hard enough when the bakers HAD heard of it,

the Technical got really interesting in pastry week.

Now, this is a recipe close to Paul's heart,

just nestling underneath the chest hair.

Paul and Mary would very much like you to make...Flaounas.

I just felt kind of confused when they said Flaounas.

It doesn't really sound like anything.

It sounds like someone sneezed in a sort of awkward way.

It sounds like an airline.

-It sounds like...

-Fly Flaounas.

It sounds like it's an insult.

-Flaounas.

-Flaounas.

I've made these a few times.

No, not really.

-I've never heard of it.

-Unless you happen to have been in Cyprus

for Easter, the chances are you will have never heard of it.

The ingredient list was the thing that we were going, "Sorry, what?"

-NADIYA:

-I just remember thinking, "It's just too much cheese.

"Has he got something wrong somewhere?"

There's a lot of cheese going in this.

It'll do nothing for my figure.

There was something we had to grind down.

-Ugh!

-Mastic, never heard of that.

I've used that in the bathroom a few times.

And the smell, I'll never forget that smell.

Oh!

That's nasty.

It's like eating sand.

One word - disgusting.

Baffled by the acquired flavour, the bakers were completely bamboozled

when it came to shaping.

None of us had seen one before, so it's difficult to start with.

No, it can't be.

Sorry to all of Cyprus if I'm ruining a lovely national dish.

That looks quite nice.

There was only a few occasions when it's like, "OK,

"I haven't got enough time," so I just thought, "You know what,

"I'm going to do it like this. I know it's wrong,

"but I'm going to end up with ten consistently Cornish...

"Cypriot Flaounas."

PAUL CHUCKLES, THEY ALL LAUGH

Right.

-Interesting.

-Cornish Flaounas.

It is a Cornish Flaouna.

For the first time, I put that tray down and I thought,

"I don't think mine are the worst."

Now, these are a bit more like it.

It's folded correctly too.

And a lovely shine from the glaze.

They're not bad. Not bad at all.

They keep going down, seven, six, and you're there - number one!

"Yes!"

Mat may have risen to the pastry Technical,

but he failed to score an ace

when he was served up Victorian tennis cake.

Oh, my God.

I think that was the worst thing I've ever baked.

I'm going in. I'd never made any sort of fondant or icing before,

and to look around and see everyone

kneading their green tennis court icing

and mine was like some sort of plasma.

What is that? Sugar paste?

Yeah. Mine is quite different to yours, isn't it?

-It is, yeah.

-So what's happened with that icing?

I can't make it. Do you know what I mean?

-I'm getting the hump now.

-Don't get the hump, you're brilliant.

This just won't go right.

This is... Honestly.

-Have you got time to do it again?

-It's annoying, isn't it?

Listen, mate. Don't let a fondant tennis court

-be the end of you.

-I know, this is it!

Not only did the bakers need to make a court,

they also needed to ice a free-standing net and racquets.

Tennis nets, tennis nets...

Obviously - otherwise, it's just not tennis.

Baking icing. I piped out whatever I piped out,

I did the net and some racquets.

Looking down, it said "bake", and I don't know where I was reading,

the top or the middle, I just went "bake" and put it in,

and carried on doing something else.

What did you make that with? Icing?

-Yeah.

-It's yellow.

-Yeah, I probably left it in the oven too long.

-Oh... Oven?

Yeah.

It did stand up, that net.

This looks like a tennis court from Hades.

-The net...

-..is standing.

Is standing, yeah. It looks like a fence.

I think a ball would probably go through that, if I'm honest.

Where I grew up, that is how tennis courts look.

A little bit of a dip in the middle, and the colour,

there seems to be little extra bits of green around the outside, here.

I don't quite know how that got there.

People bring it up, still.

"Are you the bloke who baked his icing?" "Yeah."

And they go, "Why'd you do that?" And you go,

"I'm not really sure. I thought I read it."

He may have left the tent, but Mat didn't leave the oven behind him,

as down at the fire station he is now in charge of the kitchen.

As soon as Bake Off went out, I then became the mess man, which means

I have to cook for everyone. So I do two main meals in a day shift

and breakfast in the morning shift.

Si, yours is here, mate.

It's a blessing and a curse, really. It gets me out of doing some jobs,

but it does mean I have to cook for ungrateful people every day.

There you go.

And the cooking doesn't stop at work.

With a new baby to feed,

and new house to bake in, Mat started an online food blog.

So that's the colour you're looking for.

It's quite light.

And it's pretty smooth.

We try and put out a recipe every week or ten days.

'It's brilliant, and it's a great way to get the things I want to bake

'across, and I love it. I love baking more now'

than I did before I went on.

Because, I think,

I've realised I'm all right at it.

# What do you see when you peer through the trees

# In an English country garden?

# One large tent and a massive silvery gent

# In an English country garden

-# Cakes that are fairy

-A judge whose name is Mary

# Three challengers so scary... #

What would Bake Off be

without the caring comedy cohorts that are Mel and Sue?

Mel and Sue are awesome.

Ooh!

-Lunge!

-They were hilarious throughout the whole thing.

I'm still waiting for the edible pansies to come, but...

-Edible pants?

-Edible pansies.

Oh, pansies.

Ian, when I think of the Black Forest, my first thought

is...elephants.

It's like being with somebody you've known forever.

I love these hanging nuts.

I had to put three on there, for obvious reasons!

What you see on television is only half of it.

We can't have her going out on the beach like that,

she'll get arrested.

That's the most I've ever cried with laughter in my life.

It's the gusset.

PAUL CHUCKLES

No... That's bad. That's bad.

-That's better.

-Is that better?

Yeah, that's much better. Legs together.

I think you should leave her alone.

-That's...all good. All encased. All safe.

-Now let's turn her over

and see what's happening at the back.

Sometimes take things that you're still using, or you're going to use.

-Are you enjoying that?

-And therefore you CAN'T use them.

-What about these flowers? Edible?

-No.

Spit it out.

Sometimes you just want to say, "Will you just do one?!"

Is it bon, or are we bricking it?

Bricking it, yeah. Bricking it.

I might pop them back here.

-OK.

-Will you excuse me for a moment?

-Yeah, absolutely fine.

Nadiya found out the cost of their help

when Sue lent an unfortunate hand with her fortune cookie box.

It was hard to get it exact,

so I was chuffed when it came out and it was like rounded.

I was like, "This is perfect."

I just wrecked it. I literally can't believe I did that.

I'm...I'm mortified.

How can I make amends?

-If I leave, you're coming with me.

-I'll take that.

You kind of get yourself quite stressed about everything.

And they're quite good at bringing you back down to reality.

And never was positivity more needed than when Dorret unmoulded

her Black Forest gateau.

-Dorret, what's to be done?

-Nothing.

-There's lots to be done.

-What I was thinking at the time was,

"Nothing's going to save me!"

-There's no need to get upset.

-Every reason.

-No, because it's just a cake.

-It's not just a cake.

-It IS just a cake.

-It's just a cake.

-I went to the back of the tent away from the cake,

and she actually came over to talk to me.

That doesn't mean you're going to go home.

It doesn't mean you're going to go home.

It was really nice. Cos I was not in a good place.

-We'll see.

-It tastes great.

It tastes great, you're all right.

Dorret may have lived to bake another day, but someone had to go

as week by week, Mary and Paul choose their prey.

I feel like we're a herd of gazelles that's being picked off, one by one,

by lions. Mary and Paul are the lions.

And they're hungry for bakers.

I was just always sort of crossing my fingers and toes and hoping it

-wasn't me.

-12 people, you know somebody has to go,

but you don't want anyone to go.

Being in the line-up thinking, potentially,

you're the one going to go is a horrible feeling.

But you sit there in quiet hope that maybe it's not going to be you.

But, unfortunately for Stu, Mary and Paul saw red with the addition

of beetroot to his Black Forest gateau,

making him the first to leave.

Stu.

-So sorry, Stu.

-So sorry, Stu.

Everyone has good weeks, and everyone has bad weeks.

It's all about what you do on those two days.

So no-one's ever safe.

As Marie found out to her cost

when her week one Star Baker couldn't save her in week two.

We'll really miss you, darling.

Dorret's nightmares came true when her bread bed caused the judges

to say goodnight.

And Sandy's unbalanced cheesecake tipped the scales out of her favour.

We're sorry to see you go, Sandy.

No, I knew. That's OK.

The judges' minds were set in "free-from" week,

when Ugne's ice-cream roll melted.

But in pastry week, the decision was much harder,

when two bakers had timing issues.

-It's raw.

-Your plums aren't cooked either.

Timing is your nemesis, Alvin.

And Nadiya had the same problem,

when she failed to stuff her curry-filled vol-au-vents.

-Oh, dear.

-Yeah. I remember her being really upset about the vol-au-vents

and we're all, "No, don't be upset,

"you've just made the best curry we've had of our lifetime."

It really is absolutely scrumptious.

-It tastes amazing.

-It's lovely.

With them both suffering huge problems with their bakes,

the decision was too close to predict.

The person who is leaving us this week...

..is Alvin.

Alvin. You cherub.

It was relief that I was staying,

but I'll never forget that sense of guilt that I felt.

But stay she did,

as in Victorian week Mat's Charlotte Russe

saw him become history.

We're going to miss you. The tallest baker.

And in patisserie, Paul's unrisen Genoese

saw him falling as flat as his sponge.

I ended up with what looked like an edible mouse mat.

It's hardly light and fluffy.

Did I want to go? No. Was I ready to go? No.

Come on, Governor.

And then there were four,

as Tamal, Flora, Ian and Nadiya were propelled into the semifinal.

-NADIYA:

-The competition is so kind of tight,

and everybody's really got their game on at that point.

Whoever stayed was in the final.

There were sort of whispers, "Oh, I'VE had Star Baker.

"Oh, I'VE had Star Baker."

And suddenly I was quite aware that I hadn't had Star Baker.

If Flora felt all alone in the Technical Challenge, she really was.

Now, bakers, because this Technical Challenge is so quick,

we're going to stagger your start times.

So I'm going to be asking three of you to leave the tent.

"What's going on here?" You know, we're a little bit...

anyway. And now you want to spring something else on us?

-What's this about?

-So, Tamal, Ian, and Nadiya,

-could you please leave the tent?

-What?

-Off you pop.

It was kind of like you're being led off to the firing squad.

I remember going back saying, "This is mean! They can't do this to us!

"This is so mean, what are we doing?"

And I remember literally thinking, "I need a brown bag,

"I am so hyperventilating right now."

See you shortly.

-Oh, my God.

-Mary and Paul, please,

would like you to make a chocolate souffle.

-On your marks...

-Get set... Bake!

I don't remember my heart ever going that quickly.

It says absolutely nothing in front of me.

Number one, "Make a chocolate creme patisserie."

OK. Number two, "Make a meringue." Number three, "Make a souffle."

I have never made a souffle in my life.

Hats off to her, all by herself, all by herself in the tent.

That is scary stuff.

It suddenly felt like this big, empty, scary space.

Oh, my God.

With Flora well under way,

it was Ian's turn to rise to the souffle challenge.

I'll tell you, I've never been so happy to see you, Ian.

Lovely to be here. 'It did feel really tense in there.'

Everyone is looking at you. Deal with it.

Um, and I did struggle to deal with it, I really did.

My mind's gone blank,

I'm just trying to remember how to make a creme pat.

I don't know, I made one last week, I know,

but I don't know how the heck to make the thing.

Which I'm...

I just can't remember anything...

I'm going to...

I clocked on that it was a souffle

cos it was something that had to be eaten really quickly.

I've never made one. I have never made one.

Why have I never made a souffle?

Oh, wait, because they're a pain to make.

Because I was the last one to go back into the tent,

I didn't feel quite as bad as I think some of the others did.

-Do you need these paperclips?

-I don't know why they're in there.

-Did they give you those?

-They gave those.

-Paperclips?

They're in there. I don't quite know why.

What, for filing your souffle?

For filing it away...

in the folder that says "never bake again".

Sorry.

'Paul and Mary had their backs to us while they were judging.'

We had to be really, really quiet so they couldn't work out

whose bake it was.

-Now, that's lovely. It's well baked.

-It does look good, doesn't it?

There was a lot of crouching on the ground trying to hear.

And even when you saw everybody else take theirs out the oven

and when it was presented, none of us could tell.

But Flora's souffle didn't fall short.

For the first time in the whole competition,

she was awarded first place.

Flora, we had a good rise,

it was a lovely texture and a lovely flavour.

You've done well. Well done.

It was really nice to win the Technical,

I didn't think I wanted that that much,

but actually winning it was quite nice.

But it didn't just come down to the Technical Challenge.

Across the weekend, all four bakers achieved frankly unnatural feats

with chocolate, making the semifinal neck and neck.

Every single one of us had resigned to the fact that we were going home.

We had a conversation before, and it was like, "It's me!"

"No, it's me," and Ian was like, "Er, no, no, it's me."

It's with real sadness and regret that I have to announce

that the person not joining us for the final is Flora.

I remember being on the plane home and kind of sitting on my own,

thinking, "That's a shame."

I'm so sorry, darling.

I was definitely sad that night, yeah,

but I baked brownies the next day so I can't have been THAT traumatised.

When I heard that Flora was going home it was just kind of...

It hadn't dawned on me till I had said goodbye to her that,

it was like, "Oh, you just got into the final."

I think we kind of felt like the three survivors.

The long battle.

-IAN:

-'It was one of those really emotional moments,'

cos I had been convinced I was going home, so for it to, you know,

turn around, it was like...

'Really gobsmacked.'

You know, I felt like instantly it was kind of,

"Oh, my God, you made it to the final."

And I kind of rang my husband and told him and he said, "You know,

"you could actually win."

And I said, "No, don't be stupid, I'm not going to win."

BLEATING

And so for the three bakers,

only three challenges stood between them and being crowned the winner of

The Great British Bake Off.

Bakers, HUGE congratulations.

After 27 challenges, you're here in the final.

'To start, the judges ask for a baking classic -

'24 iced buns - and every tiny decision made

'could be the difference between winning or losing.'

-(Nadiya, are you flavouring your doughs?)

-Yes.

I'm not. Whoops.

'When there's only three of you in the tent,

'you look around and think...

'the differences are suddenly so obvious.'

They were batch-making and I wasn't.

I was like, "Am I doing something wrong?"

It's traditional for iced buns that they are a batch bake.

It's fine, if you want to break the mould,

you know, on Paul's favourite thing in the world...

Stop it! I'm already nervous about the whole non-batch-baking thing.

-Why would you be nervous?

-Because you two are doing batch baking.

But it works all right for you when you break the mould -

do you remember that Technical in week one?

-Yeah, coming 12th was amazing!

-TAMAL CHUCKLES

As that bake was going on, it's like,

"OK, this set of buns are rising perfectly,

"it's going a nice golden-brown colour, but THIS set of buns,

"they just sort of look weird and they don't look right."

What I'm intrigued about, I think something's missing from this dough

cos it took way longer to cook in the oven.

-Have you got sugar in it?

-That's the bit I'm wondering about,

-whether I put sugar in.

-I don't think you've got any sugar in there,

which is why it took ages longer in the oven to get a colour,

and that's why it dried out and becomes a crispy bap,

with icing on it, and that's what's sending all my senses out.

-They don't marry up.

-And when asked to make mille-feuilles

for the Technical Challenge, it wasn't just Ian who was daunted.

It was like the first one that I think I'd done that I just thought,

-"I can't do this."

-Never made mille-feuilles before.

It feels like a lot to have to do in two hours.

I remember looking around and thinking,

"We all did badly at pastry at some point."

Back in patisserie, Ian nearly came unstuck with his cream horns.

And in week six, both Nadiya and Tamal were left deflated

by their overinflated puff.

Ooh, it's not looking very good.

Do you think we are being tested because we did bad pastry?

Oh, gosh, yeah. I never thought of it like that.

-I think it is.

-It was funny, that Technical Challenge

that had been specifically tailored to trip us up.

It's a nice touch they'd really gone for us.

With time tight, Paul's instructions called for rough puff pastry,

folding grated butter into the dough.

I remember doing it and then getting all the grated butter and beating it

back into a block, thinking, "This isn't how it's meant to be done."

I'm not ignoring the instructions, I'm interpreting the instructions.

But you just get yourself into a weird frame of mind, like,

"No, I'm definitely going to keep going with this thing that's wrong."

But one baker approached the Technical

with more trepidation than the rest.

Me and Technicals are not friends.

Last place is this one.

For nearly half the contest, Nadiya struggled in Technical Challenges.

If I could just get somewhere nowhere near the bottom,

like, just one above the bottom, I was happy.

And with the seconds counting down,

she only had one more chance to impress.

OK, bakers, your final Technical Challenge is closed.

And Nadiya didn't disappoint.

The pastry that I'm taking is beautifully crisp.

It's ticked a lot of the boxes.

She was awarded first place in the Technical Challenge.

I remember saying, "I could be perfectly happy

with this first and go home."

-Well done, Nadiya.

-But she wasn't headed home yet.

The competition was well and truly on.

For the aspiring bakers, years of ambition,

months of planning and ten weeks of challenges

had come down to this day.

When I walked into the tent, it felt like the first week, almost,

everything felt quite unfamiliar.

You could sense that kind of tension in the air.

After a close Signature,

and Nadiya just pipping the fellas to win the Technical,

everything was riding on the Showstopper.

Bakers, welcome to your final challenge in the Bake Off tent.

No matter what happens today,

you'll be getting invitations to the post-show party,

where Mary will be reprising her now-famous twerking routine.

-Absolutely.

-IAN:

-'I'm just trying to keep it level. I know the deal,'

I've just got to do what I do and get on with it.

And for one last time, Mel and Sue muttered those infamous words.

-On your marks.

-Get set... Bake.

It was a weird creepy quiet in there.

You could hear the concentration in the room.

It was all on the final bake, no pressure.

Yesterday, I just want to put it behind me, today is today.

It's the Showstopper, what the hell, go for it.

It's going to be a busy one.

They'd faced down pastry and pittas,

multi-tiered cheesecakes and dairy-free ice-cream rolls,

but for their final bake,

Mary and Paul just wanted a simple traditional cake.

As if I didn't have enough pressure,

I decided, yeah, let's just go and make my own wedding cake.

We went to Bangladesh to get married and they don't do cakes there,

and if I'd gotten married in this country

I would have definitely have had a cake.

If Nadiya's theme couldn't have been more personal,

Tamal's couldn't have been more obscure.

I'm not really sure what my theme was, to be honest,

the Chinese fishing village thing.

I don't think I really understood it at the time,

so I definitely don't understand it now.

There were these pictures in the press a few months ago

about this Chinese fishing village that had been abandoned and sort of

overtaken by all of the undergrowth and stuff,

and I really like that idea.

So let me get this straight, your classic British cake is based

on an ancient abandoned Chinese fishing village?

-Yeah.

-I love you. I love you.

I think it said something about you had to be inspired

by a Great British cake,

which is why I created this hybrid sticky toffee fruitcake.

I didn't realise we were actually meant to make our version

of a traditional cake.

Ian wasn't satisfied with making just one traditional bake.

Ten sponges, it's a lot of sponge to bake,

but then also to cool and then to ice.

Cakes weren't my forte.

I thought, I've just got to do something slightly ridiculous

and over the top, so hence

the idea of the colossal curvy carrot was born.

I knew it would take me a long time to get this lot in the oven

and I knew I'd get the fear.

Guess what, I do.

I'd only had a chance to practise it once so I wasn't really sure

if I could do it in the time.

I'd been practising SO much. I was up till four, five in the morning.

By that point, just all of us were completely exhausted

by the whole process. Like, it's amazing,

but it's really, really tiring.

-A lot of sugar work, Tamal.

-Yeah.

-Are you nearly there?

-Cooling is the issue now.

Happy, Nadiya?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Happy, Paul?

We knew we had to do it. You had to bite the bullet and we had to bake.

But we also didn't want it to end.

Ah! I froze my finger.

It's OK. We don't need fingers after this, anyway.

'It's all got to be just right, hasn't it?' You kind of feel like

it's a life-or-death situation with this cake.

So stressful. I've never been more stressed in my life.

You're going to have to motor now, my love. Do you do motoring?

-Mmm...

-No?

-No, not really.

-No.

Hurry up, Ian.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Bake Off 2015 is over.

-Woo!

-Woo!

'You've just built it all so much and realising that that was really

'going to be the end, it was all very emotional.

'It was a weird feeling. It's like, right, that is it.'

Well done. Well done.

Oh! We did it.

Outside the tent, friends and family

were gathering for an English summer's picnic.

And they were in for a treat, as Nadiya...

It does look spectacular.

That's stunning.

-..Ian...

-What a construction!

That's one of the best carrot cakes I've ever had.

..and Tamal...

It is breathtaking.

I don't quite understand how it all comes together...

-I don't think I do either.

-But I think you've done brilliantly.

..had hit the sweet spot with their cakes.

We didn't talk about it. We didn't even say the word "win".

The baking was over, the party was in full swing.

All that was missing was the cake.

'It was this amazing feeling walking out the tent. But I was also'

just thinking, like, "Don't fall over, don't fall over,

"don't fall over."

When I walked up to my mum and handed this cake over,

my mum said, "I love your cake, but Tamal's is so much better"!

My son, George, bless him, he kind of struggled through Bake Off

because he didn't like cake,

he didn't like a lot of the stuff I baked.

There he was being presented with a Bake Off finalist's final cake.

And, like, "George, would you like some?" "No." "Fine."

That's what he'd say.

Thousands had applied. 12 had tried.

But after 90 hours of baking, there could be only one champion.

The winner

of the 2015 Great British Bake Off is...

..Nadiya. CHEERING

'Everything went really blurry. I remember kind of trying to hide.

'I was sobbing into her shoulder.

'It was a really lovely feeling seeing her win.

'And she was totally the worthy winner.'

-There has to be a mistake.

-Yay!

-Well done, Nadiya.

-Thank you so much.

You're the winner of the Great British Bake Off!

'It's weird because I kind of think back

'and I think about that sentence,

' "The winner of the Great British Bake Off 2015." '

And then I wasn't expecting my name at all.

And then when she said it, it was just...

I can't even explain that feeling.

I'm very rarely lost for words.

And I remember... Just thinking about that moment...

it still makes me really emotional, it gives me goose bumps.

She's never been the winner before, has she?

-No.

-She is now, though.

-She is now.

-Yeah.

And a year later, watching it back with her family,

the result is still sinking in.

I am never ever going to put boundaries on myself ever again.

I'm never going to say, "I can't do it."

I'm never going to say "maybe".

I'm never going to say, "I don't think I can."

I can and I will.

I'm REALLY proud of Nadiya. Sheer perfection.

And I enjoyed every minute.

-It's making you cry.

-The atmosphere was amazing.

Ma, it's making you cry now.

Coming to the tent meant I had to face all the challenges

that I wasn't allowing myself to face in real life.

I'd lost the confidence to use public transport.

Something very small for some people but big for somebody like me,

who refused to go anywhere without her kids

'because they were the ones that made me feel safe.'

Put it in. Go, go, go.

I knew that when I walked away from that tent that day,

that I would be a very different person.

And it was so much more than just baking.

It was SO much more.

And since leaving the tent, Nadiya is DOING so much more.

A food reporter for newspapers and television, she is penning a novel,

and was asked to make a rather special cake

for the Queen's birthday.

My agent said, sit down, you've got an e-mail, read the e-mail.

So I read the e-mail and I said,

"Oh, I love you, Anne, but you're being hoaxed."

She said, "No, Nadiya, it's for real." I said, "Anne, can I say no?"

And she said, "Nadiya, do you WANT to say no?"

And I was like, "No, but I'm really scared."

But I asked my daughter and I said,

"Look, I've got to bake a cake for the Queen."

She said, "But you've baked loads of cakes for Mary Berry."

And I said,

"But... But..."

I was stunned.

And I said, "Who do you think the Queen is, Maryam?

And she said, "Mary Berry's the Queen."

-Does it cut?

-I hope so!

It looks very exciting.

To be on the Bake Off takes a huge amount of dedication,

determination and love.

And for those who enter the tent,

their lives will never be the same again.

The best adventures are the ones that you don't expect to happen,

and Bake Off is definitely one of those.

That oven's doing lovely things to your hair, Marie.

It's like being at a Rod Stewart gig.

I absolutely loved it.

It's got dough everywhere. DOUGH-verload.

It was an amazing experience, and it continues to be.

The right wobble would be...that.

That's a brief wobble.

'Class of 2015 is my second family.'

Thanks, little chum.

We still speak most weeks.

It's like a hotel in Thailand over there!

'I can't walk into an operating theatre without people saying,'

"Where's the cake?"

No, there's no offers of body doubles for Mr Hollywood.

Aah!

-IAN:

-'I learnt so much,'

not only about baking but about who I am and what I can do.

Do you want a hand, Alvin?

-Yes, please.

-I'm more confident in my actual skills as a baker now.

-Oh, God.

-Can you make something that we could go back again?

For me, my kids are the most important thing,

and they've seen the changes.

They've seen how happy I am.

And they know that that's what did it,

and it's just a tent, but it's not just a tent to me.

I'd love to have a really, really profound statement.

Erm...

But I think all I can say is, is that...

..to the tent

and everything that the tent encompasses...is thank you.

Thank you.