Here are the contestants on the Great British Bake Off 2020 as the new series prepares to start on TV.
The Great British Bake Off airs on Channel 4 Tuesday evening at 8PM with 12 bakers battling it out in 30 challenges over 10 weeks.
Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith will set the tasks and will decide the star baker – plus which unlucky contestant is sent home – each week.
Also returning to the tent is Noel Fielding, joined by new co-host Matt Lucas, who will be with the bakers every step of the way, ready with a pertinent pep talk, a helpful hand or just a sympathetic shoulder to cry on…
The new series continues on Tuesday, October 13 at 8PM on Channel 4.
Great British Bake Off 2020 contestants
Dave Friday
Age: 30
Occupation: Armoured guard
From: Hampshire
Instagram username: @dave_friday_bakes
Dave learned to cook after leaving hoe. Now living with his girlfriend in their first home, he loves filling his kitchen with fancy, colourful gadgets and he even chooses his appliances with Bake Off in mind!
Dave bakes at least once a week – and always while listening to his favourite punk rock bands. His baking style is innovative and imaginative and his strengths lie in bread (pretzels, brioche rolls, and baguettes are particular favourites) and decoration – he especially loves a mirror glaze.
Hermine
Age: 39
Occupation: Accountant
From: London
Instagram username: @bakealongwithhermine
Born and raised in Benin, West Africa, Hermine moved to London in 2001 to pursue further education. She’s been baking since the age of 8. The French influence in Benin has instilled in Hermine a love of high-end pâtissérie – she enjoys baking intricate millefeuille, éclairs and entremets.
She is also a dab hand at sourdough – so much so that her nine-year-old son now refuses to eat any other bread!
Laura Adlington
Age: 31
Occupation: Digital manager
From: Kent
Instagram username: @laura.adlington
Laura began baking at around the age of eight but realised her flair for it only a few years ago. She loves citrus and strong flavours, and enjoys putting a modern twist on old classics. Laura thrives working under pressure and thinks her organised nature is what particularly suited her to taking part in Bake Off.
The perfectionist in her wants things to look faultlessly pretty and gorgeously dainty. She specialises in decoration and is proud to have mastered the art of piped buttercream flowers.
Linda Rayfield
Age: 61
Occupation: Retirement living team leader
From: East Sussex
Instagram username: @lindarayovsunshine
Linda discovered her passion for baking during her frequent childhood visits to her aunt’s dairy farm where she’d help to milk the cows, then carry a bucket of milk into the kitchen, where her aunt taught her to bake cakes topped with rich, creamy icing.
To this day Linda buys homegrown produce from another aunt’s fruit farm and uses it in her baking. Her strengths are in the classics and in home-comfort cooking, like her signature sausage rolls.
Loriea Campbell-Clarey
Age: 27
Occupation: Diagnostic radiographer
From: Durham
Instagram username: @loriea_cc
Born and raised in Jamaica, Loriea uses baking as a means to celebrate her Caribbean roots. She moved to the UK when she was 15 years old, but began baking at age five with her maternal grandmother, whose influence plays a big part in her cooking style.
Loriea loves to include coconut, chillies and cinnamon in her food – and rarely follows a recipe exactly. In fact, from the moment she reads a recipe, she starts to think how she can tweak it to make it her own. Her husband, Peter, is (of course) the biggest fan of her cooking, and he especially loves her Jamaican patties.
Lottie Bedlow
Age: 31
Occupation: Pantomime Producer
From: West Sussex
Instagram username: @lottiegotcake
Lottie’s Lancastrian great-grandmother was a fervent cake-baker – and for this reason Lottie believes that baking is in her blood. She has always had a fascination with cooking: when she was little, she watched cooking shows rather than playing with her toys and was often to be found making notes from cookery books.
She calls herself a ‘perpetually frustrated perfectionist’ and, while her baking has become more refined over time, she hopes it retains an element of her dark sense of humour.
Makbul Patel
Age: 51
Occupation: Accountant
From: Manchester
Instagram username: @makkers_ra_ra_ra
Self-taught baker Makbul first took on cooking at home as a means to help support his mum. He has honed those early skills through watching TV shows, reading books and drawing inspiration from amous chefs. He has a remarkable ability to measure out ingredients just by eye.
Mak says his strengths lie in pastry and, for celebrations such as Eid, he enjoys making traditional Asian nankhatai biscuits. A beekeeper, Makbul says his three grown-up children are his harshest baking critics.
Marc Elliott
Age: 51
Occupation: Bronze resin sculptor
From: Cornwall
Instagram username: @marc_o_bakes
Marc decided to enter Bake Off in a bid to show his daughters that even when life throws obstacles at you, you can rise to new challenges and develop new passions. A personal tragedy, losing his leg in a motorbike accident in 2016, led him to baking bread as a form of therapy, and from there he came to baking cakes and pastries.
From palmiers and chausson aux pommes to opera cakes and millefeuille, his bakes now show true finesse.
Mark Lutton
Age: 32
Occupation: Project manager
From: Liverpool
Instagram username: @thebakingbuddha
Mark fell in love with baking at a pie shop in Edinburgh – he visited every day while he was at university for the shop’s delicious Mac ’n’ Cheese pie. Following that early inspiration, he began to experiment: first attempting (and perfecting) a lemon drizzle cake and eventually taking on multi-tiered wedding cakes, each time looking at the science of the bake in order to perfect it.
His style is hugely influenced by his Irish heritage, but also by the flavours of Africa and Asia, where he travels regularly for his work as a project manager for public health research programmes.
Peter Sawkins
Age: 20
Occupation: Accounting & Finance Student
From: Edinburgh
Instagram username: @peter_bakes
Peter grew up feasting on his mum’s home cooking but it was Bake Off that inspired him to start baking for himself – he has watched every series since the first and has been baking seriously since he was only 12 years old.
He loves to honour his homeland in his cooking, using Scottish ingredients – including berries, whisky, oats and honey – whenever he can.
Rowan Williams
Age: 55
Occupation: Music teacher
From: Worcestershire
Instagram username: @rowansbigbakes
Self-taught Rowan describes his baking style as ostentatious – but, he hopes, tasteful. French pâtissérie is his absolute passion and he is drawn to fine, complex, layered cakes. His love of the Georgian era encourages him to reinvent 18th-century recipes whenever he can.
He enjoys decorating his bakes with flowers, preferably edible ones, using what is in bloom in his garden.
Sura Selvarajah
Age: 31
Occupation: Pharmacy dispenser
From: London
Instagram username: @surasbakes
Sura grew up surrounded by family who offered food as a means to show affection, love and respect. The many Middle Eastern and Asian influences in her heritage – including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and India – mean she enjoys experimenting with ingredients and flavours from all over the world.
Never one to stick to a recipe, Sura loves to improvise in the kitchen and inject her bakes with as much personality as possible. She loves to work with fragrant and floral flavours such as cardamom, rose and orange blossom.
The Great British Bake Off airs on Channel 4, Tuesday nights at 8PM.
Picture Credits: Mark Bourdillon/Love Productions/Channel 4