While making a gravity-defying cheesecake or a Roman Colosseum out of gingerbread is all well and good, sometimes the most memorable Great British Bake Off moments occur when a poor flustered contestant ends up producing something that looks like a dog’s dinner.
Related: 9 shock Great British Bake Off scandals that prove the show's not so tame
While the civilian version of the show has spawned its fair share of faux pas over the years, it’s the celebrity charity edition that sees things go hopelessly wrong more often than not.
From cowpat celebration cakes to slug-like Swiss rolls, here’s a look at ten star-studded disasters that made us all feel that little bit better about our own skills in the kitchen.
Jonathan Ross’ grilled marble cake (2015)
With a style self-described as "avant-garde", Jonathan Ross held the worst celebrity baker mantle for several years following his appearance on the show in 2015.
He may have talked the talk but soon proved he should stick to the day job with two horrendous bakes which even the diplomatic Mary Berry struggled to hide her contempt for.
Firstly, the technical challenge saw him make profiteroles so flaccid that Berry remarked they looked more like Yorkshire puddings. Secondly, Ross turned on the wrong oven dial and instead of baking his show-stopping marble cake, he ended up grilling it.
Chris Moyles’ raw crumpets (2015)
"Baking crumpets is a pointless task. You can buy them in the shop," Chris Moyles reasoned during a technical challenge which left Paul Hollywood wishing the former Radio 1 DJ had indeed simply gone to Tesco.
The Bake Off judge couldn’t even finish a tiny bite of the raw, under-baked and heavily salted crumpet that he was served up, quickly and wisely spitting it out for the sake of his general health.
Moyles had only produced eight of the 12 crumpets required for the task, a fact which guest host Ed Byrne joked proved to be a blessing in disguise.
Joanna Lumley’s accidental coffee cake (2015)
A national treasure she may be, but even Joanna Lumley couldn’t get away with the disastrous cake she presented in the celebrity version’s most entertaining episode to date.
Competing against Jennifer Saunders, Lulu and Dame Edna Everage, the Ab Fab star mistook coffee for cocoa, somehow managed to both burn and undercook her sponge and made spun sugar that looked more like congealed treacle.
If that wasn’t enough, she also ended up burning Paul Hollywood’s tongue by adding enough baking powder to raise the Titanic.
An exasperated Lumley later summarised: "I’ve done many things in life, including giving birth to a child. I’ve never done anything – anything – that comes near this. Anything."
Dame Edna’s aluminium cookies (2015)
As you’d expect, Dame Edna proved to be just as entertainingly incompetent in the kitchen during the same episode.
With wild abandon, the iconic Aussie playfully mocked the show’s usual meticulousness with three wonderfully shambolic bakes she appeared to improvise on the spot, all the while wearing "millions of pounds’ worth" of diamond rings.
Her pièce de résistance, so to speak, was the giant cookie she literally had to yank out of a baking tin with a pair of pliers and which perhaps inevitably had the distinct taste of aluminium.
Nick Hewer’s cowpat cake (2018)
One of the funniest ever Bake Off contestants turned out to be a man who very rarely turns that frown upside down.
Indeed, in the space of 60 minutes, the stern Countdown host – dressed in full suit and tie in a sweltering hot tent – completely shattered his reputation as the smoothest guy on TV with a meltdown which had viewers in stitches.
The ex-Apprentice sidekick even admitted he needed a lie down after making a Devil’s food cake which he firmly acknowledged resembled a cowpat.
He was also forced to start his show-stopping croquembouche no less than five times, and yet the pastry he served up still ended up being entirely inedible.
Jamie Laing’s "vile" banana loaf cake (2018)
On paper, Jamie Laing should have walked his heat against Tim Minchin, Ella Eyre and Ruth Davidson. Not only does the Made in Chelsea star own his own sweet company, he’s also the great-grandson of the man who invented the McVitie’s digestive biscuit.
Obviously the baking gene didn’t get passed down the generations as he ended up making what Paul Hollywood described as the "worst cake that has ever been baked in the tent".
Making banana loaf cake, which looked more like an oversized and over-baked pork pie, Laing used the wrong mixer, didn't know what buttercream was and had never even used flour until a few days prior to his bake.
But despite confidently promising the judges something absolutely delicious, even the man himself was forced to admit that his wing-it approach ultimately produced something "vile".
Lee Mack’s half-baked blondies (2018)
Lee Mack was lucky to escape his Bake Off experience with all his limbs intact after a catalogue of Mr Bean-esque calamities in TV’s most famous tent.
The stand-up peeled his own finger instead of an apple, squirted fruit juice into his eye and was forced to wear a fashionable blue glove after slicing his thumb so badly he needed medical attention.
Not that Mack’s blood, sweat and tears were appreciated by the judges. Commenting on the half-baked, half-finished blondies he served up in the signature challenge, Prue remarked that they would be far better served with yoghurt for breakfast. And she soon clarified that this was an insult.
Roisin Conaty’s drunk-person crepes (2018)
After unexpectedly impressing in the signature challenge, novice baker Roisin Conaty’s beginner’s luck then ran out spectacularly in the Crêpes Suzette technical.
The posh Pancake Day alternative should have been easier to make than the previous round’s cupcakes. But with the GameFace star struggling to comprehend both how to use a sieve and the terms for various parts of an orange, her finished product turned out to be a gloopy and burned mess that welded itself to the plate.
The self-effacing Conaty even admitted herself that it "looks like something a drunk person would be making after watching Bake Off".
Alan Carr’s nightmarish Rainbow cake (2018)
Hats off to the bookers of the 2018 celebrity series who managed to find not just one but five of the most hilariously inept contestants ever to grace the tent in the same year.
Alongside Conaty, Mack, Hewer and Laing, Alan Carr also proved he should never be let near a kitchen ever again as he accidentally whisked cellophane into his cake mix, was forced to bin an entire sponge and caused a Twitter furore with the near-pint of milk he poured into his cup of tea.
He also ruined every ‘80s kid’s childhood with a nightmarish show-stopping tribute to classic TV show Rainbow which Noel Fielding joked made George look like a melted Barbara Cartland.
John Lithgow’s slug-like Swiss roll (2019)
It was sweet to see how much a six-time Emmy-winning, twice Oscar-nominated Hollywood star with nearly half a century in the business was so invested in a cosy, low-stakes British baking show.
And John Lithgow didn’t disgrace himself in the tent with an impressive gingerbread recreation of a scene from The Crown he admitted he was "ridiculously proud of".
However, he was less successful in the technical challenge baking something he’d never even heard of before, the good old Swiss roll.
Not only did his sponge, jam and cream combo resemble a giant multi-coloured squashed slug, but after tasting the monstrosity, Prue Leith remarked that it was "not saleable on any cake stall".
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