The 17 Most Memorable Baking Mishaps on The Great British Baking Show

“The Great British Baking Show,” or GBBS (aired in Britain as the “Great British Bake Off”) has no shortage of baking fails … happily for us, the viewers. We love a good mishap, even amid the cozy, non-competitive climate that exists under the roof of the Tent. Because yes, the Tent deserves a capital T, at least this one time.

There are, of course, some more general fails, such as the criminally confusing way the seasons have been aired in the United States. You can watch it today on Netflix, but you’ll have to Google how they line up (e.g. Season 8 in Britain, aired in 2017, is Collection 5 on Netflix) if you really care. It’s also worth noting that the show itself lacks a squeaky-clean past, with several jokes encompassing racist undertones or overtly embracing racist tropes — although that’s more of a production problem, and the showrunners have banned the more offensive tropes, at least for now.

In any case, we’d expect such a long-running show to have its share of blunders, and boy does it. From sponge cakes that sink to much-dreaded soggy bottoms, the show is rife with heartbreak and tears. This is made up for with Olympian levels of camaraderie, mutual support, and love, but what can we say? It’s still pretty fun to clutch our pearls and enjoy the drama of one of the best cooking shows of all time.

If you vomited a little bit in your mouth just reading that title, well, join the club. Go hit the mouthwash and then join us for what is inarguably the biggest baking fail in the show’s history, at least in this household. When soliciting suggestions for this list from a family of diehard GBBS watchers, this is the first one that popped out, literally. From everyone. The. very. first. thing. 

Now, mere mortals might never hope to reach the level of Paul Hollywood’s baking skills, but theoretically, when it comes time to bake, we can at least avoid the worst ideas, no? No. Flo Atkins, a fan favorite from Season 8, rejoined the cast under the tent for Episode 1 of Season 2 of the Holidays spinoff with a full bottle of mulled wine clutched in her hands. As if that wasn’t enough, she then whipped three different kinds of stinky cheese into a frosting and covered the entire abomination.

After being slammed for her creation by both judges, she then dared to proclaim them wrong and say she’d continue to bake it because all her friends loved it — you have to respect that.

Baking is hard, and although the King of Bread acts like it’s easy to bake the perfect crusty bread, it’s really not. Focaccia, however, is one of the more accessible recipes for even novice home chefs, so how extremely talented baker Crystelle Pereira managed to completely biff such an easy bake in the Finals — and in the showstopper, no less — is destined to remain a mystery. Although everything is subjective, this was easily the most painful moment of Season 12.

Like a slow-motion trainwreck, the focaccia tragedy unfolded with agonizing predictability. An obviously tired and stressed Crystelle repeatedly questioned the amount of oil in her focaccia, noting that it’s supposed to be oily … right? So she adds a little more, and a little more, and a little more, until the poor focaccia is essentially poaching in the oven. She watches her bread through the oven door with understandable paranoia, perhaps hearing the audible teeth-grinding from future viewers. The focaccia emerges less with a soggy bottom (can soggy bottoms ever be avoided?) and more with a soggy everything. Worst bake ever, at least of that season.

This whole episode was a baking fail, but it was absolutely a win for the feels. If you’ve watched “Derry Girls,” a three-season sitcom based in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, then their charm needs absolutely no explanation. From pretending dog pee is the Virgin Mary crying to cleaning a restaurant top to bottom with mayonnaise, their exploits are endless. The only thing that makes this show about four girls and one “girl” even better is the poor, beleaguered nun (Siobhán McSweeney) who must oversee their nonsense.

You can see everything from champagne slime to a decapitated Amelia Earhart in “The Great Festive Bake Off” from January 2020. From exploding frosting to mysterious ingredients that Paul Hollywood can’t identify (and neither can the baker in question), it is nonstop laughs … and fails. If you don’t want to sit down and take the time to watch the worst of the worst in the tent, one right after the next, well — don’t relate. But you can at least watch the funniest moments on YouTube.

Sweet Season 11 contestant Sura Mitib was nothing but charming and hardworking on the show, but as she never went on to further baking acclaim beyond her modest Instagram, she is now often remembered best as the contestant who knocked over fellow Dave Friday’s technical. Sura was only trying to swat away a fly but instead swatted away four of his six submissions of pineapple upside-down cake.

Dave proved himself a gentleman, however, graciously forgiving Sura and going on to present the remaining two pineapple upside-down cakes. He also proved himself a tremendous baker, going far in the season — despite the mishap. 

If you’ve watched GBBS for any amount of time, you know that it’s heavily frowned upon to bring in premade ingredients. If you’re a Derry Girl, well, sure — you’re given some pretty heavy leeway. Saiorse-Monica Jackson famously blended multiple colors of fondant in her stand mixer, with hilariously gray results.

However, if you’re a regular contestant, enlisted for skill rather than laughs, then you know it’s not allowed, so Season 5’s Enwezor Nzegwu should have known better. And of all things, he brought in fondant, which is a pretty simple (at least for high-level bakers) combo of marshmallows, powdered sugar, water, and shortening. Recipes may vary, but they’re just not that hard, so Enwezor really had no excuse. To be fair, although it was a while ago, this diehard fan doesn’t remember being particularly impressed by him in general. He was sent packing for this crime in the same episode where he produced his worst bake.

One of the more memorable moments was when Stacey Hart somehow accidentally removed her oven door entirely. To be clear, it was not funny for Stacey at all, especially when edited to make it look like she had to hold it on for the rest of her bake, which isn’t true, according to her.

Although she did have to futz with it and baby the door while she waited for her Savoy cake to cook, the contestant later claimed that someone put the door back on right away. The interwebz are divided on the truth of the door, so humble home viewers may never know. What is clear is that Stacey was one of the funniest, but also one of the most polarizing, contestants to grace the tent.

It’s easy to talk about the “worst bake” in a show that is as dedicated to airing baking fails as it is to confectionary triumphs, but it’s almost always hyperbole because there can only be one worst bake … right?

In the case of Dorret Conway from Season 6, though, you can make kind of a strong case. It’s always heartbreaking to watch an unmolding go awry, but Dorret’s Black Forest that immediately melted into a puddle of goo is one of the saddest. If you know anything about Black Forest cake, you know it’s a) delicious and b) not supposed to collapse the minute you plate it. Unfortunately for Dorret Conway, not all Black Forest cakes listen to instructions.

You know how if everyone gets a D on the test, it’s probably the teacher’s fault? Yeah, that’s what happened in Season 11 when the judges asked the contestants to make cake busts. No, not the type of bust that lives in a bra; the type you’d find on a sculpture more likely. Contestants were instructed to forge — from cake — likenesses of real people. Poor everybody.

Still, a bad brief doesn’t excuse the vast amount of mediocre baking that happened here. It led to one publication summing up the results from cursed to most cursed, which … agreed. No one should be asked to bake a real person, whether that’s Freddy Mercury, Marie Antoinette, Charles Darwin, or, as in the image above, David Attenborough (whose bust later took a spill).

If you watched the 15th season of the Great British Baking Show, then you know Nelly Ghaffar was a force to be reckoned with. She shared openly about her pregnancy losses on the show, dedicating a beautiful cake to her family members who were no longer with her. She was hilarious, owning her flamboyant style and unashamed of her large stature, and was so gentle and funny that everyone loved her. So obviously, only this queen could watch Noel and Alison wreck her batch of caramel with pretend rolling-pin baseball and serenely say she’d make another.

For the most part, Nelly’s creations were amazing, and all fans were sad to see her go midway through the season. True, she brought some odd recipes into the tent; poppyseed and apple pie immediately come to mind. Although apparently this is a Slovakian classic, the judges were not impressed, and it sure looked like her worst bake from home. Still, she rose above it all, caramel included.

Viewers had opinions about some of the strong flavors (especially licorice) that Dutch-born and London-based menswear designer Christiaan De Vries put in everything in Season 15. Christiaan was, to be fair, an absolute artist, both in terms of flavors and in terms of design (his sewing machine illusion cake was a sight to behold). He was also an avid gardener, which showed in his beautiful work. But there’s just something to be said for a restrained hand, and he often didn’t have one.

Christiaan constantly blended herbs with floral flavors, used veggies for color and flavor, and pushed the envelope with strong ingredients from his home country: licorice included. His worst bake, at least in terms of consequences for him, probably ended up being his showstopper, which looked like a licorice bomb. It was gorgeous, but the flavor may well have cost him the winner’s cake stand.

Ruby Bhogal ended up being part of a pretty amazing ensemble in the tent during Season 9. There was Kim-Joy of the adorable animal bakes, Rahul the shy scientist with his technically stunning creations, and Manon of the many French controversies. But Ruby, with her hilarious older-sister energy, was truly iconic, and so were her bakes.

Unfortunately, one of the worst ones wasn’t iconic at all — or rather was, but for the worst reason: it was a total fail. When her vegan cake’s top layer went skating off the bottom one, crashing to the bench below, the contestants outside covered their mouths in horror. This is the slowest-mo of cake fails, replete with much viewer squealing (at least, one assumes everyone was squealing as loud as this household was). Watching Ruby’s vegan cake fall over from afar is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to fans … I mean, Ruby.

Speaking of towers, how hard is it to make the Eiffel Tower in chocolate? Turns out, very hard, as contestant Terry Hartill discovered in Season 9. Granted, it would be difficult to build the Eiffel Tower in any material — its original construction took more than two years, which was considered very impressive. With more than 18,000 metal parts and 2.5 million rivets, it’s easy to see why.

Terry’s cake, though, looked almost as challenging, given he was working with tempered chocolate that just wouldn’t stay together due to the mile-high temps in the tent that day. (Doubtless, he longed for a bit of tempered steel instead.) In the end, he served the judges half a strawberry champagne cake, which was his worst bake to date, or at least the one that has lasted longest in cultural memory.

With so many benches, fridges, freezers, ovens, and egos in the mix, it’s a wonder mix-ups of this sort don’t happen more often. #Custardgate is the exception that proves the rule, a high-octane drama that only served to show that contestants are actually pretty good about keeping track of their own bakes. Usually.

In this case, though, Season 4’s Deborah Manger wasn’t careful enough and snatched Howard Middleton’s trifle ingredient … the infamous custard of the hashtag. Although Howard was a true gentleman about it, Deborah obviously felt awful. She got hers, though. While it wasn’t because of the custard, the judges did evaluate both creamy fillings independently, and Deborah’s bakes were overall found wanting. She left the tent that episode.

It would be hard for the average human to make a nice set of rum babas under the best of circumstances, but for wunderkind John Whaite, who won the third season of GBBS, such a challenge shouldn’t have posed any, well, challenge. Indeed, his babas were absolutely beautiful, except for the fact that he used salt instead of sugar to dress the tops, making them his worst bake. He then had to brush the extra salt off the top before giving up and deciding to cut them off entirely.

Speaking as someone who has done this under incredibly not-stressful kitchen conditions, it’s hard to blame John for making this mistake. Not only were the jars not labeled when he went to sugar up his Rum Babas, but his dad was constantly breathing down his neck about becoming a lawyer, which would make anyone want to freak out. Despite that, he went on to have a successful career as a baker with a number of cookbooks.

Not all of the worst bakes come at the hands of the bakers; sometimes pure bad luck is involved, with a hefty shove from staff. As with #Baseballgate (a name invented just now and hopefully already trending), the hosts are responsible for baking fails more often than you’d think. In this case, presenter Sue Perkins leveled some English muffins in Season 4. The fact that she did so with the best of intentions has earned her forgiveness from most, including poor Howard Middleton, who was once again the victim of someone else’s haplessness.

The moral of this story is that the presenters really need to stop leaning on the bakers’ stations/playing sports with baking tools near stations/going anywhere near stations during the baking process. On the other hand, contestant Crystelle (she of the flaccid focaccia) did confirm what we’ve always suspected: that the presenters are more a saving grace than they are a nuisance. So there’s that.

No list of worst GBBS bakes is complete without a discussion of #bingate, in which Season 5’s Iain Watters angrily threw away his cake because a fellow baker, Diana Beard, accidentally left it out when she was trying to squeeze hers into the freezer, and his ice cream melted. The only thing less cool than leaving another contestant’s ice cream out on a counter to melt is throwing a toddler-sized fit in response to an honest mistake. Unless the contestant actually is a toddler, which — to this writer’s knowledge — has never happened.

Adults, though? They have to keep their you-know-what together, and nobody agrees with that more than Paul and Prue. When he tossed his baked Alaska, Iain tossed his baking champion chances along with it, the rationale being that he’d chosen not to present a bake at all. (If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, please know that #bingate is alternately known as #fridgegate. Yes, these are the important things in life.)

If you’re not a diehard GBBS fan, then you may not have built up a years-long reservoir of ire to help you understand what exactly is so problematic about a missing raspberry. Frankly, IYKYK, and if you don’t, no one can properly make you understand. It’s not that complicated, though, boiling down to one essential question: How could the powers that be allow a chocolate cake one raspberry short into the intro footage — the clip backing the title, no less?

This worst of all baking fails can’t be attributed to anyone specifically, but it’s nevertheless a crime. It’s so infamous it even inspired its own technical in Season 14, which at least brought a measure of closure to the rabid fan base, who felt seen for the first time in more than a decade.