scones on a plate cream tea

The last showstopper. The last tea towel flap. The last Mary Berry grimace as she bites into raw pastry. The last flurry of delightfully PG innuendos from Mel and Sue. Any Brit that didn’t tear up at the BBC’s last The Great British Bake Off final (BBC 1, 26 October, 8pm) surely has a heart more shrivelled up than Lee’s “bone dry” drizzle cake from episode one.

Sure, there’ll be the Channel 4 version, but with Paul Hollywood the lone baker “following the dough” there’ll be no Perkins-Giedroyc banter or Mary Berry sparkle as gin is stirred into the scone mix.

Will the new show still pull in the likes of family cook Jane whipping up apple and thyme sausage rolls at 1am and weeping as Paul Hollywood shakes her hand at a regal blue, white and red pavlova?

Or engineer Andrew “face palming” as he sticks praline to the wrong side of the baking paper before cooking up a chocolate cake his gran would be proud of?

Then, of course, there was Candice. “No one can out-Candice Candice,” sighed a slightly defeated Jane as she watched her rival produce Prosecco-soaked strawberries, glittered pistachios and a picnic “fit for the Pearly Kings” without a hair out of place.

And she was right. As Candice was crowned the last (sort of) Bake Off winner there were tears, more tears and celebratory chocolate cake all round. “You’ll never know what this means to me,” wept the PE teacher as her shaking hands almost sent the trophy crashing to the floor. And Great British Bake Off, you’ll never know what you meant to British TV.

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