The Great British Bake Off will celebrate a baker’s dozen of series next week by mixing in even harder challenges for contestants.
The 13th year of the show will also include themes based on Halloween, Mexico and custard for the first time.
Judge Prue Leith, 82, said: “In the very early years, the challenges were less challenging, but as the bakers have got better, the challenges have got harder.
“Can you imagine how difficult it is to judge 12 absolutely perfect, identical somethings? It’s impossible.
“So we need to have something that sorts the sheep from the goats.”
The standard has improved since the show began on BBC2 in 2010 with Mary Berry as a judge and Mel and Sue the original hosts, before Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas took over on C4.
On the bakers this year, Prue said: “They’ve learned. They know how high the standard is, but they also know you can learn a lot of the techniques on YouTube. And they practise a lot.”
Judge Paul Hollywood said two of the new themes are unusual, adding: “We’ve got a Mexican Week, which is great because I’d just come back from Mexico. And we’ve got a Halloween Week to coincide with Halloween.”
Prue added: “I loved custard week. I often say to the bakers when they’ve made a pudding or a cake that doesn’t look right but tastes good, ‘There’s nothing wrong with this cake that a bowl of custard wouldn’t fix’.”
On the themes, Paul, 56, said there is a lot more diversity this year, adding: “We sort of swapped it around a little bit, it makes it exciting.”
This year, the 12 bakers battling it out in the famous white tent include a nuclear scientist and a nanny.
But Paul said he is fed up with giving out his famous handshakes as he gets approached in the street for them, although bakers still love his approval.
He added: “The standard’s good – what am I gonna do? They’re annoying me now.”
Prue added: “It’s so interesting because we have a perfect bake and it’s obvious it needs a handshake.
“And you can see Paul, one half longs to give a handshake because it’s the right thing to do. But you think the handshake thing has overtaken too much, don’t you?”
Paul said: “It’s called the Reluctant Handshake now. It’s just praise for being decent bakers.
“It’s got to the point where I’ve got binmen or guys when I’m walking down the road trying to stick their hand out and shake my hand.
“I say ‘Where’s your cake?’ I get away with saying, ‘I’ve got to be careful because of Covid. I can’t do it.’ It has gone a bit silly.”
Bake Off returns to Channel 4 next Tuesday at 8pm.
