Former Great British Bake Off winner Giuseppe Dell’Anno has hit out at the show over its recent finale, branding it “underwhelming” and “odd”.
Like many viewers of the Channel 4 show, the 2021 champion took issue with how this year’s finalists were not given enough time to perfect their bakes and were laid a “trap” in one of the challenges.
“The last episode of the season felt like an odd final for an odd series,” he told Radio Times. “The Signature, with a full picnic basket of treats, was very ambitious, and probably closer to the level of complexity of a Showstopper.
“The Technical had a bit of trap with the vegetable gelatine, that, if you had never used before, like Sandro hadn’t, you wouldn’t have known how to use.
“I would have failed the Technical completely as I had no idea up to last night that you had to boil veggie gelatine to make it work – that little detail felt a bit like a sneaky trap for the bakers, so not exactly pleasant to watch.”
He continued: “And the Showstopper challenge simply did not give enough time to the bakers to produce one of the masterpieces that they have produced in the past, so the result was slightly underwhelming, especially knowing what those three are really capable of.”
Giuseppe said the Showstopper left him “with a bittersweet aftertaste”.
“You could see that our lovely bakers gave it their best shot, but none of them managed to squeeze, within the time given, a truly final-worthy Showstopper,” he said.
Tuesday’s final featured a Technical where the bakers were given just two hours to create an intricate Summer Pudding Bomb, with all three finalists faltering.
After that came an ambitious Showstopper bake, which saw the trio all receiving pretty blunt criticism from Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith after they were given only three hours to construct a large “edible structure”.
Praising the bakers’ efforts, Giuseppe added: “Let’s not forget that these are the people who gave us a spherical cake on Custard Week, a massive rocket-shaped Krokan and an entire DNA helix made out of biscuit!
“They certainly have the skills to deliver, so I can only think that perhaps the timing was not adequate.”
In the end, it was Syabira Yusoff who became the latest winner of the Great British Bake Off, after beating Sandro Farmhouse and Abdul Rehman Sharif.
Syabira, who became the first woman to win the show since its eighth series, said of her win: “All the hard work, all the trial and error, it has all been worth it. I am very very proud.”
The Great British Bake Off is available to stream on All4.