Paul Hollywood has accused Great British Bake Off contestants of 'cheating' after a technical challenge went so wrong that the judges could not eat most of the bakes. The blue cheese and roasted grape flatbread task on Tuesday night (October 13) saw many of the flatbreads come out too large and raw in the middle.
Judges left unable to eat the bakes
Judges Paul Hollywood and Nigella Lawson were unable to eat the majority of the flatbreads made by the contestants. Speaking on the show's spin-off, Second Helpings, Paul told Jon Richardson and Judi Love that he believed the group cheated during the task.
Jon called it an "exceptionally poor show", while Nigella described the challenge as "catastrophic". Following the task, Paul shared a video on Instagram of himself making the flatbreads, calling the recipe "simple" to make.
Disagreement over the cause
Nigella suggested the bakers lost confidence during the task, saying: "For them, I mean, I think that the difficulty is that once confidence starts going, it's very hard to get it back."
Paul dismissed that theory, replying: "It's not that, they were cheating. They were cheating. This is flatbread, there's a clue straight away. It is flat. Not crumpet, not chunky." He added that contestants copied one another, saying: "Someone was looking over the shoulder, going, 'Oh, ok'. Someone else has copied that person and then somebody else, and in the end, they all ended up..."
Nigella disagreed, saying she would not call that cheating. She added: "I think that is about not having confidence because suddenly, you know someone was going to do a flatbread and then you see it and think, 'Oh no, maybe it's meant to be like that'. I think that's the difficulty."
One baker succeeds as another leaves
Defending the bakers, Nigella called them "really good" and highlighted how "annoying" it was for them, as the contestants knew they could do better. One baker did produce a slightly cooked flatbread and took the top spot, while the others were judged on look, shape and uniformity.
During the episode, Molly became the third person eliminated from the tent. The Great British Bake Off continues Tuesdays on Channel 4 from 8pm.
