It’s back! GBBO is back for another year. Who can follow in Nadiya’s footsteps by stealing the nation’s hearts? Will there be another cringe-tastic Ian-esque character? So many questions, and just a few precious weeks to answer them as the Great British Summertime reaches its peak and then descends into autumn. So, without further ado, let’s crack on with the Episode One highlights.

• The signature challenge was creating a melt in the mouth drizzle cake. Selasi’s citrus and spice cake with cardamom looked interesting right from the start, standing out from the lemon and orange incarnations doing the rounds in the tent. Benjamina’s pistachio-inspired lemon drizzle cake also sounded just lovely.
• When it came to the tasting, Benjamina’s cake had great flavour and texture to it, and she even got a ‘top draw’ from Mary. Selasi also impressed, making Paul pull out one of his cheeky grins. The others were a pretty mixed bag, with texture problems, flavour problems, and, in Tom’s case, too much gin in his gin and tonic drizzle cake.
• The technical challenge tasked the bakers with making 12 jaffa cakes. This didn’t look like the trickiest of challenges but some of the bakers struggled. Andrew even managed to put the jelly and chocolate on the wrong side of the cake. He came in last place as a result, with Selasi coming out on top with his expertly executed cakes. An early leader at this point for Star Baker!
• On a side note, Andrew’s an early contender to be this year’s Ian, coming in very high on the smug scale.
• A mirror glazed cake made up the Showstopper. Jane impressed with her ‘less is more’ approach to her chocolate orange cake, Rav’s shine drew compliments from Mary but criticism on the texture from Paul, Michael’s weird grass cake didn’t work at all, Selasi did well despite not getting a perfect glaze, and poor Lee, weak throughout, barely even merited 30 seconds of film for his cake assassination. Benjamina’s shine on her white chocolate glaze really stood out from the crowd, along with Andrew’s caramel-inspired effort.
• And so on to the results. Jane was, surprisingly in my opinion, named Star Baker. I thought Benjamina was in with a strong shout, along with Selasi, but they must just have fallen short.
• It was clear straight after the technical who was going home. Poor Lee never really managed to raise his game and was deservedly sent home.

Roll on Week Two and biscuit week! It’s like it’s never been gone from our screens…