The Great British Bake Off 2022 star Paul Hollywood — ‘The challenges were awesome!’

PAUL HOLLYWOOD: “The standard’s good. Although a couple of Showstoppers may have tumbled and collapsed. And a Technical did catch a few of them out because it was a little bit technical!” 

DAME PRUE LEITH: “Yes, one Technical floored them all and we had a row of bakes that tasted good but they did not get what they were aiming for! But they've watched Bake Off, they know how high the standard is and they practise a lot. As the bakers have got better, the challenges have got harder because we need them to be difficult enough for a few to fail! We need something that sorts the sheep from the goats.”

PAUL: “It’s called the ‘Reluctant Handshake’ now! It started as a gesture for me to say, ‘Well done, you’ve done a great job’. But it's got to the point where I've got guys walking down the road trying to shake my hand and I say, ‘Where’s your cake?!’ It’s lovely though and I like giving them out when the baking’s good.”

PAUL: “Cake Week is always a good week to start with. It gives you a good idea where people are going. If you have a decent oven, recipe and scales, the chances are, you're going to end up with a decent cake. Where people fall flat on their face is the decoration. But it's always sad to lose a baker in the first week.”

PAUL: “We've got some unusual ones. There’s Halloween Week, which we’ve never done before, and Mexican Week, which is great, because I’d just come back from there. The challenges were awesome. We've had a lot of diversity with them this year, we have swapped it around a bit, which makes it exciting.” 

DAME PRUE: “The Mexican program was terrific fun because Paul kept saying, ‘I thought the best taco I'd ever eaten was in Mexico, but…’ And Halloween was great. I loved Custard Week too. Often when the bakers make a slightly awful-looking cake that still tastes good, I say to them, ‘There's nothing wrong with this that a bowl of custard wouldn’t fix!’”

PAUL: “No! After 13 years and 900-odd challenges, it's going to be pretty difficult to get something past us, we've seen most of it! But the thing that gets me are the techniques and the equipment they use. The moulds that are available now are so intricate. When they're coming up with designs, they can pour in chocolate and get a leaf or a ladybird, it’s incredible.”

DAME PRUE: “I kept thinking they had bought the decorations, but actually, they had made them! I don't quite agree with Paul though, because at least once in every show, there'll be something that stands out to me and I will ask the baker for the recipe!”

PAUL: “Yes the opening intro we filmed with Noel and Matt was a dream come true. We play four iconic figures and it’s pretty authentic, that's all we can say. It follows in the line of the others we’ve done, from Boris Johnson to Billy Ray Cyrus, and Prue looks epic! It was a real giggle.”