The BEST episodes of The Great British Bake Off
Every episode of The Great British Bake Off ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Great British Bake Off!
Britain's best amateur bakers compete in the iconic white tent - all united in their aim to prove their baking skills and impress judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith.
#1 - The Final
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/16/2012
After weeks of pastries, cakes and bread, three bakers have made it to the final. They now must face the most demanding of challenges yet as every aspect of their baking skill is scrutinised. To prove themselves to judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry, they must create pastry perfection with a signature pithivier. Then on to one of the most intricate technical challenges ever devised - fondant fancies. Finally, it all comes down to their last ever showstopper, creating a masterpiece with a notoriously difficult chiffon sponge. After two days of baking, only one of the finalists can claim the title, winner of The Great British Bake Off.
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#3 - The Final
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/8/2014
The three finalists face a Signature Challenge in which they have just three hours to prove they have mastered a pastry technique that usually takes a whole day. They then have to tackle a Technical Challenge without the aid of a recipe, before rustling up a Showstopper that turns sponge, caramel, choux pastry and petits fours into a winning combination.
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#4 - Biscuits
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/6/2011
For the signature bake, the bakers were give 1+1⁄2 hours to make 12 biscuits of their choice; the biscuits should not be too soft, too hard or too crumbly. The technical challenge gave the bakers 1+1⁄2 hours to bake 24 brandy snaps. For the showstopper, the bakers were asked to produce a macaron display, consisting of 120 macarons in 3 different flavors; they had 5 hours to complete it.
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#5 - Bread
Season 6 - Episode 3 - Aired 8/19/2015
The ten remaining bakers tackle quick breads, baguettes and 3D bread sculptures. Starting with the signature challenge, the bakers must tackle a Bake Off first and make quick breads - with no proving necessary, the bakers have an hour and a half to get creative with their flavours. Ranging from sweet chocolate loaves to manchego and prosciutto stuffed bread, the finished loaves are a delight, and one even earns a handshake from Paul. In another Bake Off first, Paul sets baguettes as the technical challenge. A seemingly simple recipe, everyone knows what a baguette looks like... or do they? The pressure of the tent gets to a few of the bakers, and the finished baguettes result in one of Paul's most brutal judgings. For their show-stopper, the bakers must make edible 3-D bread sculptures. As one baker says, 'it's doughverload', with another making enough bread to start up his own bakery. Mary and Paul have to work their way through a bicycle, a snake, an array of flowers, a lion and even the Brighton Pavilion, all made of bread. The results are impressive - so much so that one baker renders Paul speechless by making the best bread sculpture he's ever seen.
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#6 - Tea Party
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 9/21/2010
In the final, one of the three finalists was eliminated after the first bake, and only two bakers competed in the final day. For the first challenge, they were asked to bake 24 professional-quality tea cakes in 2+1⁄2 hours. For the final challenge, the 2 finalists were given 5 hours to bake 24 miniature tarts, 24 scones, 24 choux buns, and 24 brown and white bread finger sandwiches for afternoon tea on the garden lawn for 40 guests (including all the bakers from earlier rounds).
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#9 - The Final
Season 6 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/7/2015
Only three of the original twelve bakers remain. They've made it to the final. Over 27 challenges, they've worked their way through every baking discipline Mary and Paul have thrown at them - from cakes to bread, pastry to puddings, and biscuits to chocolate. Along the way they have tackled recipes from the 70s and 80s, they've gone back to the Victorian era, they've made gluten-free bread, strange meringue concoctions, incredible constructions out of biscuits, bread and choux... They have all survived, and now they face their last three challenges. The signature challenge sees the finalists tackle enriched dough to create delicious filled iced buns. The technical requires them to conquer something they have all struggled with, and finally, for their last ever showstopper, they must make a classic British cake. Mary and Paul expect nothing short of perfection. So who will hold their nerve? Who will be crowned winner of The Great British Bake Off 2015? On your marks, get set... bake!
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#11 - Pies and Tarts
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/10/2013
It's week four in the tent and the baking is getting serious, as the remaining bakers put on their pinnies to pimp up pies and tarts. From the country's oldest known cookbook, we discover the almost 700 year old history of the English custard tart. It might once have been popular at the decadent court of King Richard II but it is now a technical challenge in the Bake Off tent, one which causes more than the intended wobble for the bakers. Starting with what should be a home baker staple, their signature double-crusted fruit pies present a challenge to even the most experienced bakers, let alone the one baker who has a deep-hatred of all things fruit, and the showstopper sorts the bakers from the boys, as they set about making a filo pie centrepiece. Mel and Sue come to their aid as the bakers' nerves are stretched tighter than the filo pastry they are making from scratch.
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#12 - Desserts
Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 8/26/2015
For the nine bakers left, it's time to tackle the sweet ending to every meal - desserts. The signature challenge comes in the form of a French classic - creme brulees. The bakers need to achieve the perfect wobble of the creme and an audible crack of the brulee. It's not easy though, as they have to brulee under the grill, not with a blow torch. While some will reach perfection, others will serve up scrambled egg and custard soup. Mary picks the technical challenge, and it's a European medley - the spanische windtorte from Austria, with a nod to Spain and some Swiss and French meringue thrown in. It maybe only be meringue, cream and soft fruit, but it's tricky to construct and needs to be decorated with delicate fondant violets - if only the bakers knew what a violet looked like! Not one, not two, but three baked cheesecakes make up the show-stopper. Mary and Paul are looking for faultless baked cheesecakes, beautifully flavoured and stacked in a show-stopping way - easy? The bakers don't disappoint with their inventive ingredient combinations, but not all of the tiered cheesecakes are structurally sound.
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#13 - Patisserie
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/9/2012
There are only four bakers left vying for a place in the much sought-after final of the Great British Bake off. The weight of the occasion is getting to the most unflappable of the bakers as they frantically work against the clock to deliver petits fours to Paul and Mary's exacting standards. The hardest technical bake ever seen on Bake Off finds two of the bakers left wanting as their fraisier cakes collapse. It's possible to hear a pin drop in the kitchen as the bakers pull out the stops for their showstopping choux gateaus. Paul and Mary think they have seen it all until they are presented with a tribute to the Tour de France..
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#14 - Pastry
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 9/14/2010
It’s the penultimate round and as the travelling marquee pitches up in the Cornish village of Mousehole, it’s time for the bakers to get to grips with the most difficult of all baking skills – pastry. They bake their own versions of hearty British pies, get down to details with exquisite pastry canapés, and take a crash-course in crimping for this week’s surprise bake. While they’re rubbing-in and rolling-out, Mel and Sue will be finding out that Britain’s earliest pies really were humble, how pastry became an art form and how pies used to have a more sinister side. Then judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood will decide who will be the final three to go through to the final.
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#15 - Patisserie
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/1/2014
It's Patisserie Week, and the remaining four bakers will need to demonstrate that they have skills worthy enough to see them through to this year's final. The bakers are challenged to make a signature baklava - two types of any flavour they like, before the technical challenge demands they knock up a German Schichttorte, a cake cooked in stages under the grill to create 20 layers of different coloured sponge. Finally, the showstopper sees the semi-finalists baking non-stop to create two entremets in which they should demonstrate as many personal skills and techniques as they can.
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#16 - Biscuits
Season 6 - Episode 2 - Aired 8/12/2015
With cake week over, the remaining bakers must prove themselves with biscuits. The signature challenge is to create 24 biscotti. Twice baked, these Italian specialities have to be crammed with flavour and have a crisp crunch. It's a delicate balance between underbaked and bendy, or overbaked and rock hard. Paul chooses the technical challenge, arlettes, a labour-intensive reverse puff pastry biscuit from south west France. Wafer-thin, flaky and swirled with cinnamon, delicious to eat but devilishly difficult to make. And finally, the show-stopper is to create and build an edible biscuit box filled with 36 biscuits of a different flavour. Judges Mary and Paul want to see the bakers exercise their creative muscles with clever construction and beautiful decoration, while not forgetting that flavour is king. The pressure is on, and the clock is ticking. Who will claim Star Baker, and who will be leaving the Bake Off tent?
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#17 - European Cakes
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 9/10/2014
Past halfway in their baking marathon and the remaining six bakers face three European cakes. For their signature challenge the bakers are asked to bake yeast-leavened cakes; a tricky cross between cake and bread that sees some of the bakers opting out of Europe... Mary sets the bakers their most demanding technical challenge yet in which they must make a Swedish princess torte. With 24 different stages and only two-and-a-quarter hours to do it in, the bakers have their work cut out for them, while Sue explores the events that led to the huge array of Danish cakes and pastries in the Danish cake table tradition. And finally, a showstopping finale that puts the hungry into Hungary... The bakers must make their own contemporary version of the dobos torte. Traditionally a multi-layered Hungarian cake, the bakers must go one step further and make a two-tiered dobos torte with an emphasis on all things caramel in every way they can imagine... but whose Bake Off will come to a sweet but sticky end? On your marks, get set... bake!
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#19 - Pies
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 9/11/2012
The bakers turn their attention to pies. For their first task, they must master a perfect Wellington. When they have recovered, it is straight into a fiendishly difficult technical challenge - hand-raised pies. None of the bakers have used a pastry dolly before and it proves the downfall of many. With several bakers in the danger zone, everything rests on the showstopper challenge - American pies. Who will be this week's star-spangled baker and who will be leaving the bake-off?
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#21 - Tarts
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 8/28/2012
Things are hotting up in the Bake Off tent as the remaining ten bakers do their best to wow Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry with some unusual flavour combinations for their tartes tatin. Baking know-how is the all important ingredient for coming through the technical challenge unscathed. Mary's treacle tart seems simple enough, but its lattice top proves to be the undoing of some of the bakers. So the pressure is on - a showstopping tart is no easy task when baked under the gaze of Paul and Mary, but it is the bakers' best chance to achieve the accolade of Star Baker, and more importantly to avoid going home.
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#23 - Cake
Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 8/5/2015
The 12 new bakers don their aprons and head for the iconic tent for cake week. Starting with cake week, the bakers' first signature challenge is to make a madeira cake. It's a well-loved cake, but which of our bakers will try to impress by reinventing this classic, and who will play safe in a bid to get perfect madeira with its traditional crack? With one challenge out the way, the bakers face their first technical - Mary's frosted walnut cake, a pre-war classic that is as British as they come. Light sponge sandwiched with buttercream and covered with sweet meringue, this technically challenging cake is one of Mary's favourites, and no-one wants to disappoint the queen of baking. Day Two, and the bakers have to go all out to impress with their first show-stopper, the black forest gateau. This retro classic from the 70s has it all - chocolate, cherries and cream. It's ripe for a reinvention, and these 12 bakers are ready and willing. 12 new bakers, 30 new challenges. On your marks, get set... bake!
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#24 - Desserts
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/3/2013
It's week three, and the heat in the kitchen is already too much for some, as the remaining 11 bakers get ready to deal with desserts. Mary and Paul are upping the ante. Having survived cake and bread, this is the first week we see the bakers having to multi-task across several different baking skills at the same time; a signature trifle combining biscuit, cake, jelly or custard in perfectly distinct layers; a technically difficult task of making floating islands, which result in various forms of unrecognisable landmass by the end of the bake and a showstopper that pulls out all the stops, getting the bakers to juggle 24 petit fours that the judges might finally deem acceptable. They are taking no prisoners, and for the first time ever, there's a baking burglary in the Bake Off tent and it becomes a crime scene. Mel explores the origins of the trifle and discovers how it was transformed in the Georgian era from an elitist dessert for the aristocracy to a dish that was accessible to the masses.
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#25 - Alternative Ingredients
Season 6 - Episode 5 - Aired 9/2/2015
The remaining bakers have to try and bake without sugar, gluten or dairy this week. The signature challenge sees the bakers having to create a variety of sugar-free cakes, from an upside-down pineapple cake to carrot cakes. The technical challenge features gluten-free pittas. For their showstopper, the bakers have to make dairy-free ice cream rolls.
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