Great British Bake Off: First baker eliminated from tent after emotional biscuit week

Danni, a service centre administrator from Dorset, has become the first baker to be eliminated from The Great British Bake Off.

The 25-year-old failed to impress judges during biscuit week, which saw contestants tasked with preparing American-style cookies, recreating iced gems, and making a “visually striking” biscuit mosaic.

At the end of Tuesday night’s episode, West Yorkshire hairdresser Tom was crowned star baker, while Danni was informed they would be leaving the tent.

“Oh my goodness, I am really happy that I was the first one out because I know everyone in there has more skills than me,” they said.

“But I think I’ve learned something about myself, which is that in the right circumstances I can make quite a few friends. Finding love in a group of strangers – that’s just beautiful.”

Tuesday’s episode was the second of the year, but Danni was the first eliminated as no one was sent home during cake week last week.

Danni said they felt the “writing was on the wall” and it “wasn’t a surprise at all” to be the first one to go.

“Of all the bakers there I was easily the weakest, which isn’t bad at all – it means I have 11 other people to bug about baking questions now whenever I want!” they said.

Danni added that competing on Bake Off gave them “some of the best advice about how to improve something that I love”.

The first challenge of biscuit week saw the bakers tasked with creating 30 identical American-style cookies, which could have different flavours, but needed to be decorated uniformly.

Danni, a vegan, told judges Nigella Lawson and Paul Hollywood that they were not going to be able to try their “Snickerdoodle” cookies, which included cream and butter, before presenting them.

When it came to the tasting, Nigella said the cookies had “too much cinnamon and bicarb” while Hollywood called them “powdery”.

“It’s impossible to know what you are baking if you don’t taste it,” Lawson added.

However, Tom’s almond praline, salted peanuts and chocolate cookies were called “bang on target” by Hollywood.

The hairdresser had another success in the technical challenge where the bakers had to recreate iced gems – with his biscuits being singled out as the best.

When it came to the showstopper challenge, he hit a hurdle.

The bakers had been tasked with creating a “visually striking biscuit mosaic” which had to depict an image or pattern and created using an array of smaller biscuits and edible glue on a biscuit base.

Designs ranged from a computer, clock, and sunflowers, while Tom’s was inspired by the Burn Book from the 2004 movie Mean Girls.

Created from more than 70 individually baked raspberry biscuits, Tom was left close to tears when realising he would not have enough time to complete it.

“It’s going to look rubbish,” he said in the final minutes.

“I think they are going to be disappointed in the way that it looks. It just feels so humiliating that I couldn’t do it,” he added through tears.

Although Hollywood questioned whether he had “dropped” his creation, Tom received positive comments on the flavours of the biscuit, which Lawson said she “adored”.

Despite it being called a “mess”, Tom’s efforts throughout the three challenges saw him awarded star baker.

The Great British Bake Off continues next Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 4.