Great British Bake Off: 2020 Contestants Revealed

A Samaritan, a student and a pantomime producer are just three of the contestants hoping to win this year’s Great British Bake Off.

The show will return to Channel 4 on September 22 after filming was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This year’s lineup consists of 12 contestants, one less than the dozen bakers who competed last year.

Matt Lucas will replace Sandi Toksvig as host, joining the return of Noel Fielding.

Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith will be on hand to judge the best cakes in the famous white tent.

The bakers were selected in April, but coronavirus restrictions forced the filming schedule to be rewritten and the series will hit screens a month later than usual.

The show is normally filmed for three months, mostly on weekends. However, this year, the producers asked the contestants to take six weeks off from work and stay in a safe place to film.

“Everything was complicated, everything was different, but everyone wanted to do it,” executive producer Kieran Smith told Radio Times.

Down Hall Hotel in Essex was chosen as the new base of the program, housing the production team, bakers, hosts, judges, hotel staff and cleaners all together, with additional temporary accommodation set up in the parking lot.

Meet the contestants

• Dave is a 30-year-old armored guard from Hampshire. He likes to bake once a week while listening to punk rock music, and he likes pretzels and baguettes. When he’s not baking, Dave’s other interests include cars and taking his dog and cat for a walk. Dave said that he met the new host Lucas during the first week of filming and realized that he was “just as nervous as I was.”
• Accountant Hermine was born and raised in Benin, West Africa, and moved to London in 2001 to study. The French influence in the country has instilled a love for high-end pastry in the 39-year-old. His laugh is described as “contagious”.
• Laura, 31, is a digital manager from Gravesend, Kent. She specializes in décor and believes her organized nature will lend itself to the show. She loves musical theater, both acting and watching, and is also a volunteer for the Samaritans.
• Retirement Team Leader Cute, from East Sussex, discovered her passion for baking during her frequent childhood visits to her aunt’s dairy farm. To this day, the 61-year-old buys home-grown produce from another aunt’s fruit farm and uses them to bake her signature sausage rolls.

• Lori is a diagnostic radiographer from Durham. The 27-year-old uses baking as a means to celebrate her Caribbean roots. She moved to the UK from Jamaica when she was 15 years old, but started baking with her grandmother as a child. Her husband especially loves her Jamaican empanadas.
• Pantomime producer Lottie She says baking is in her blood, and when she was little she watched cooking shows instead of playing with her toys. The 31-year-old from West Sussex describes herself as “a perpetually frustrated perfectionist.”
• Acceptable is a 51-year-old accountant from Greater Manchester. The self-taught baker began cooking at home as a means to help support his mother. He has a remarkable ability to measure ingredients with the naked eye and enjoys making traditional Asian nankhatai cookies.
• Bronze Resin Sculptor Bagasse He lost a leg in a motorcycle accident in 2016, leading him to bake bread as a form of therapy. The 51-year-old from Leicester, now living in Cornwall, is a single father and decided to join Bake Off to show his daughters that life’s obstacles can be overcome.

• brand is a 32-year-old public health project worker from Northern Ireland, now living in Liverpool. He fell in love with baking at a patisserie in Edinburgh, which he visited every day while in college. His style is influenced by his Irish heritage, but also by the flavors of Africa and Asia, to which he travels regularly for his work.
• Accounting and Finance Student Pedro He grew up enjoying his mother’s home cooked food in Edinburgh. But it was actually Bake Off that inspired the 20-year-old international badminton player to start baking for himself. He likes to include Scottish ingredients like berries, whiskey, oatmeal, and honey whenever he can.
• Rowan, 55, from Worcestershire, is a music teacher. He calls his baking style ostentatious but, wait, tasteful. The fitness enthusiast enjoys decorating their cakes with flowers (preferably edibles) using what is in bloom in their garden.
• Last but not least, pharmacy dispenser Sura He grew up with influences from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and India in his heritage. The 31-year-old lives in London with her husband and grandmother, and loves to experiment with ingredients and flavors from around the world.

The show’s spin-off, The Great British Bake Off: an Extra Slice, hosted by Jo Brand, begins on Channel 4 on Friday, September 18.

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