Forum

Is the website that supports the TV show The Great British Bake Off a blog? It does not appear in the current list of blogs whether under its true name of The Great British Bake Off or the US mangled version The Great British Baking Show. There are a slew of recipes there from judges, contestants and the audience. In the Library seciion all the annual books that accompany each series have been indexed with a few recipes given online links back to the show's website.

As a fan of the show, who has occasionally baked some of the technical challenges (i.e. the judges recipes) and wants to bake 'em all, I would love to be able to find all of them in one go. It isn't always easy to see what in the listings is a technical challenge and what is a contestants's recipe or indeed one of the many interesting space fillers.

Our Blogs tab does cover blogs, websites and newspaper columns (that are available online). There are thousands (millions?) of food blogs worldwide so there are many good ones we have not yet indexed. Our primary focus has always been on indexing cookbooks and magazines though we have recently started indexing blogs from cookbook authors e.g. Nigella.com, Ottolenghi.co.uk and Half Baked Harvest. It's a big commitment starting a blog index as we have to keep indexing it for ever - unlike a cookbook where it is one-and-done.

Many EYB members are big GBBO fans so it is likely we will index the site at some point. In the meantime any member can add any recipe from the site using the Bookmarklet - explained here in Help. And there are 204 GBBO recipes with Online Recipe links that can be added to your Bookshelf. For GBBO contestants you would have to search individually by their names for online recipes (there are loads of them!) e.g. Nadiya Hussain, Edd Kimber, Chetna Makan, Liam Charles, Candice Brown, Ruby Tandoh, John Whaite, Martha Collison, Kim-Joy, Benjamina Ebuehi, James Morton, David Atherton, Giusseppe Dell'Anno, Freya Cox, Richard Burr, Miranda Gore Browne, Flora Shedden, Jo Wheatley, and Ruth Clemens (we have a lot of her recipes as we have indexed her blog The Pink Whisk). 

GBBO recipes are also spread across 2 websites. There is the official GBBO website which has those since the series moved to Channel 4 and the earlier series which are on the BBC website.

The official web site has recipes for both the Channel 4 and BBC broadcasts. The changeover happens here https://thegreatbritishb...e/16/?category=Technical (although as new series and variants Junior for example are added the "page" number will change).

It does not have all the recipes that were posted to the BBC website. For example, you'll notice they only have recipes for 3 bakers from Series 6. Over on BBC, from Series 6 you will find Alvin Magallanes's recipe for the excellent Prosciutto, Manchego and Balsamic Onion Soda Bread: https://www.bbc.co.uk/fo...iutto_manchego_and_15148

It's difficult to tell, since the official site has no search function that I can find, only a filtering function, but I would guess the two sites have entirely separate selections of recipes.

I am implicitly only really concerned with recipes for the technical challenges. Set myself the challenge of baking pretty much all of those over the next few months. Really what I'm after is to be able to find all the technical challenges on the show website (or in the annuals) and recipes for the same baked good from other people (predominantly professional bakers).

For contestants I'll look in either the annual books, of which I have them all, or the contestants own books, of which I have many. The non-appearance of a specific contestant's recipe does not concern me too greatly.

That challenge continues tonight as pastry dough for Cornish Pasties (series 1) is resting in my fridge as I type.

Wow, what a project that is! According to Wikipedia there are 124 episodes and 32 specials so that's a lot of technical challenges. I think you should start a Forum topic with progress updates.

More than 150+ really, if one includes other national versions. 😜 And the recent introduction of a junior version and maybe also the professional version. I think the French amateur version is better than the UK professional one. There are several programmes coming to air soon with 20 celebrities, which means at least five shows. https://thegreatbritishb...to-cancer-bake-off-2023/

Thankfully savoury and sweet challenges could be done on the same day. A few of the challenges are similar as series 1 kicked off with a Victoria Sandwich and one of the (BBC?) finals had contestants making mini versions.

There are several dozen of these technical challenges already under my belt — an ever expanding one. Plus many of the breads I make on a regular basis. Actually looking at my records I have made all those bread. And not a few of the biscuits; including the dubious one of Jaffa Cakes are they cake or biscuit? A couple of times I have predicted a technical challenge and attempted it ahead of the programme. Tried making some of the savoury pies with varying degrees of success. My order of progress is rather haphazard.

But if one wants to get on the programme then needs must I reckon. 🤪 🤔 Even without competing the challenges make for a good baking cirriculum. And before anyone asks no I am not going to be on the show and anyway there is a condition of entry that "the first rule of fight club is do not talk about fight club."

Been there got the spreadsheet, which for the last few seasons has been updated immediately after broadcast. Also have one tracking my own baking activities with lessons learned going back over a decade.

Been there got printouts of some from both the links to general details of each technical challenge and the recipe pages at each of the BBC's food microsite and the programme's dedicated web site. Though the latter is rather disorganised as the adult and junior versions are all jumbled up together.

Been there got the apron and mug. Gifts from my famly in support of the S^2C campaign.

Like a sports fan collects game stats I collate "stats" on the show with that afore-mentioned spreadsheet of what has featured in each episode by season, by type of bake, by bake by series by episode. Though the mention of links makes me think there should be links to the online recipes (or my offline PDF copies). Files with printouts of the "authorititaive" recipes and all the books plus many by contestants. And thanks to Channel 4 here in the UK watched a couple of series of The Great Australian Bake Off. Heck been known to watch GBBO repeats on the Food Network UK.

As I say together the technical challenges form an excellent baking cirriculum from the naîvity of the first series to the finesse of professional quality patisserie of the most recent few series and seriously better than some MOOCs trying to teach baking. What I want to get out of EYB are alternative recipes for the same item maybe augmenting all that with quotes from the programmes of what it is the judges set as their criteria. The goal being to improve my baking skills and ctreativity without attending baking school; my local one only accepts students who are working full in the food industry and I am very much the amateur.

If Bake Off were a person I would be imprisoned for stalking.

hahaha.  Very dedicated to the task.  Although I hardly make desserts anymore due to sugar avoidance, I am still very interested in savory baking. Have you posted notes for the recipes made on EYB?

I was not at all interested in the Great British Bake Off until this thread started! So googled "taechnical challenges & GBBO" .. guess you keen baking types have already done that but in case not: here's one blogger doing just what ThePatheticBaker and Fyretigger seem to be endeavouring : click this link .; or this one     or any of the several from folks trying to emulate. Strange that neither judge actually ever makes any of these technical challenges to demonstrate to contestants! ! Might now have to watch an episode of the show..

Those two links demonstrate what could be done but sadly like many — me included — that attempt the Bread Baker's Aprentice challenge (of baking every bread in Peter Reinhart's book of the same name) both their attempts have fizzled out after a few bakes.