The Bake Down - Bake Off Reviewed

Happy New Year to all of our listeners, we wish you all the best for 2022! As always the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy was joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on a wonderful New Year Special, where four stars from former series returned, with Kim Joy, Rowan, Hermine and Jon all back looking for bake off glory in the famous tent, as...

Merry Christmas to all of our listeners! We hope you had a wonderful day celebrating! As always the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy was joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on a wonderful Christmas Special, where four stars from the hit British TV Series 'It's a Sin' battled it out for bake off glory in the famous tent. We reflected o...

As always the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy was joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on carrot cakes, Belgian buns and a mad hatters tea party for a final that was too close to call until the end. We've loved doing the podcast for this year and we'll aim to be back for the festive specials. We’re so sad that Bake Off is over for ano...

WHAT. AN. EPISODE. If you're after brilliant baking, handshakes everywhere you look and drama until the final moments - then you simply couldn't have asked for more than what was served up in the tent for a memorable semi-final. As always the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy was joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on how our remaining...

The arrival of 'free from' week brought with it more cries of 'all about survival' as our final five bakers entered the tent, with identical dairy free ice cream sandwiches, vegan sausage rolls and a gluten free celebration cake all on the agenda for those that wished to advance to a semi-final. As always the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy was joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton,...

Welcome back fans of the Bake Down, it's a pleasure to have you with us once again, as we react to Caramel Week, which included a sharing sized caramel tart and most excitingly of all - a chance to see how to make your very own Twix bar - except they couldn't mention it was a Twix bar, we just had to listen to Matt refer to how it may usually belong in a golden wrapper! As always the founder of Ba...

Roll up, roll up, get your innuendo bingo cards ready after perhaps the most innuendo laden episode in Great British Bake Off History as our seven bakers were tasked with making some perfect pastry to keep themselves in contention of the ultimate prize. Founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy is joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on some lo...

Once again the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy is joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on the first ever German week, where it should have been home advantage for Jurgen! So excited were we about German week, that we've decided to run a FREE webinar this Sunday, 24th October, at 3.30pm UK where Dan is going to be teaching Eisenbahner...

Once again the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy is joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on dessert week, where we ended up with as many disasters as we did successes. Could our bakers make a promising Pavlova and what about their stupendous sticky toffee puddings... surely none of them would forget to put their flour... oh. Never mind....

Once again the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy is joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on bread week, where Lizzie was on hand with more surreal animal related stories to keep us entertained! Could our bakers make a stunning Focaccia and what about their ciabatta breadsticks - one so deserving the bread master himself Paul Hollywood e...

Once again the founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy is joined by Bake Off legends Howard Middleton, Jane Beedle and Dan Beasley Harling to reflect on biscuit week as Series 12 continued with a superb episode of baking entertainment. We saw some wonderful Brandy Snaps created before the bakers were asked to make some Jammie Dodgers, albeit it seemed they weren't allowed to call them that! Child...

The wait is no more, as Paul, Prue, Matt and Noel were back on our screens to kick us off with what we're certain will be ten joyous weeks of baking. Fair to say we had a real mix of baking going on in the tent, but from 19 year old Freya to 70 year old Maggie, there's a wonderful cross section of British society represented and everyone will no doubt soon have their favourites - we all do. Founde...

Hurrah! It's back again to save us! Bake Off returns in the UK on 21st September and on Netflix on 24th September and we hope we'll be your perfect accompaniment to the new series, as once again Hollywood and his gang entered a COVID bubble so that we could all enjoy the big show and we'll be here to reflect on it each week! Founder of Bake With A Legend Josh Landy is joined by Bake Off legends Ho...

Hurrah! Four more celebrities arrived in the tent ready to impress Paul and Prue as TV presenter Anneka Rice, comedian John Bishop, pop star Nadine Coyle and wheelchair basketball player and TV presenter Ade Adepitan were ready to bake. They attempted decorative choux buns in the Signature before tackling financiers in the Technical and for their third and final challenge, they had to create a sho...

Hurrah! Four more celebrities arrived in the tent ready to impress Paul and Prue as YouTube Sensation KSI, Popstar Jade Thirlwall, Comedian Katherine Ryan and TV Presenter Stacey Dooley battle it out for the coveted Star Baker apron. There were some rather questionable baking in another fantastic celebrity episode. This special series is of course being aired to raise money for Stand Up To Cancer,...

Hurrah! Four more celebrities battling it out on our screens as rapper Dizzee Rascal, artist Philippa Perry, actor Reece Shearsmith and radio presenter Nick Grimshaw battle it out for the coveted Star Baker apron and incredibly we even saw a handshake this week! This series is of course being aired to raise money for Stand Up To Cancer, and if you'd like to join us in supporting this important cau...

The Tent swing open for four more celebrities arrived ready to show their baking credentials. James McAvoy, Anne-Marie, David Baddiel and Dame Kelly Holmes make signature decorative tarts, a savoury technical, and brought out their spirit animals in cake form in the showstopper! As ever, Bake Off legends Howard Middleton and Jane Beedle were on hand to give their expert opinion, as our new host Em...

Hurrah! The Tent has reopened once more as four celebrities found themselves behind the most famous of baking benches. Sci-Fi star Daisy Ridley joined comedian Rob Beckett, Bake Off Professionals host Tom Allen and X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke to put themselves through their baking paces. As ever, Bake Off legends Howard Middleton and Jane Beedle were on hand to give their expert opinion,...

Happy New Year! Just when you thought it was over for us until Summer 2021, it wasn't... as Bake Off was back with two special episodes over Christmas and New Year. Josh, Howard and Jane couldn't let the episodes pass without comment, so got together to reflect on the second special episode which aired in the UK on Sunday 3rd January 2021. It saw a return to the tent for Helena, Rahul, Henry and N...

*** After the success of our first free webinar, Dan Beasley Harling will be leading another one on Sunday 6th December at 6pm London time, teaching you how to make the perfect scone with chantilly cream, so you can bake along with us for around an hour to give you a flavour of what a class with us entails! You do have to register if you want to attend that but it's absolutely free -  click h...

Well, what can you say! Ten fantastic episodes, 30 tremendous bakes, 12 contestants whittled down to three for this weeks final and one crowned the Bake Off Champion. I hope you’ve enjoyed watching this series as much as we’ve enjoyed making this podcast for you to listen to. We'll have one more episode next week which will be a recording from our live webinar this Saturday. Joining Jane, Howard a...

We had all sorts of mess, plenty of perfection and ultimately one baker who we thought would excel at patisserie heading home at the penultimate hurdle as we saw our final four made Savarin, Cornucopia and a Cube Cake. We digest a week of mixed fortunes as two bakers excelled towards the final which seems hard to call. Whilst we are sad the series is coming to an end, we’re going to be celebrating...

The Quarter-Final saw a familiar theme as dessert week returned as five became four in the Great British Bake Off Tent. We saw the bakers creating 12 mini cheesecakes for the signature before being largely unsuccessful in making two sussex ponds for the technical challenge, which were, in the main, ironically pond like, by the time they were being judged. The showstopper was the undoubted highligh...

The 7th week of Bake Off 2020 left Howard feeling a little uncertain as to quite how '1980s' it was really was, but after making a quiche, some finger doughnuts and an ice cream cake, we can't deny we were in need of eating something sweet as we watched Hermine become the seventh different star baker in as many weeks. We saw Laura forget to turn on a button which almost saw her bid farewell to the...

The newly themed Japanese Week started off with a challenge to make eight soft delicious steamed buns... and considering they were asked to make buns, there weren't enough bun related jokes really. Prue wanted them to melt in the mouth whilst Paul was more concerned that they were exactly to his taste as he mistakenly took the tent for a restaurant. Then it was a case of turning to a Macha crepe c...