Who is the most fabulous baker boy? Tonight they'll battle it out in the Great British Bake-off's first all-male final, but who does JAN MOIR fancy to win

After 12 weeks of whipping, drizzling, beating, proving and mixing, the moment has arrived.
The calamity of meringue week, the disaster of the hand-raised pies, the moment when doctor Danny dropped her cake mix all over her plimsolls?
All forgotten, as we finally come down to the caramel crunch. To the meringue peak of perfection. To the sponge challenge that separates the yolks from the whites and — this year — the men from the boys. The moment when we discover who will make off with the Bake Off title this year.

Tonight, BBC2 screens the last in this series of the Great British Bake Off. And for the first time in the history of the show, there is an all-male final as contestants John Whaite, Brendan Lynch and James Morton battle it out for the title of best baker.

Ready steady bake: Judges Paul Hollywood (second left) and Mary Berry (centre) and the three grand finalists John Whaite (left), James Morton (second right) and Brendan Lynch (right)

Who will win? John is unpredictable but with flashes of baking brilliance and he is excellent on breads.

Brendan is an old-fashioned all-rounder, perhaps rather too fond of sugar cages and frills, but he will be difficult to beat; his experience and mastery of technique always shine through.
James is the youngest finalist, but has won the weekly accolade of ‘star baker’ more often than his rivals. He can be capricious; his bicycle made of choux pastry was a surprise hit — no helmet, where is his sense of safety? — while his cherry and fig meringues were a taste-flop.

 

Earlier episodes saw contestants earning the judges’ censure by putting pink peppercorns in their pastry, omitting egg whites from their crème caramels or failing to lattice their treacle tarts correctly.
Culinary sins included producing bakes that were overproved, underbaked or — most heinously — had a soggy bottom.

Yet whether the bakes were good or bad, GBBO has become a huge hit. This series has entertained audiences of over five million and rising.
Judge Paul Hollywood has become an unlikely silver fox heartthrob, while his colleague Mary Berry has wowed with her bomber jackets and expert but kindly critiques.
Tonight, the finalists will have to negotiate pithiviers, treacherous fondant fancies and wrestle with giant chiffon sponges to win the title.

So who will triumph? Here is our guide to the twinkling trio . . .

THE DARK HORSE

Wigan-born John Whaite won the show’s prized ‘star baker’ accolade in week two with his bread skills, and later elicited much praise for his choux gateaux and fraisier cake.
Yet the law student has had a rocky road to the final, including some real schoolboy clangers.
In week six, he put his finger in the Magimix and practically had to be stretchered out of the Bake Off tent. Then he added salt instead of sugar in another cake.

Nevertheless, he has flashes of true genius, he really wants to be a baker — and he gets tearful if anyone is too nice to him.

• BIGGEST DISASTER

John says: ‘Oh, the worst week for me was the enriched dough in week seven. It was a shame, because I really like working with dough, but everything got on top of me. My stollen was a disaster.’
His problems began with the ‘starter’ mixture he’d prepared in a bid to get the cake to rise.
‘I didn’t get my starter for it out of the fridge in time and it was too cold to mix into the dough. In the end, it didn’t rise properly.’

• BAKING BACKGROUND

John, 23, lives in Manchester with his partner of four years, graphic designer Paul — who helped design the gingerbread Colosseum in week eight.
John started baking as a child to help him get though the misery of his parents’ divorce and still believes in the therapeutic power of baking. This year’s GBBO heats coincided with his law degree finals at Manchester University — tricky, but he did well.

‘I got a first,’ he says. ‘I always maintain that baking is a really good stress release. Baking helps put things in perspective.’

His Flour & Eggs blog showcases his enthusiasm. Recent entries include a three-ferment technique for baking light wholemeal bread, plus recipes for Black Forest macaroons and lemon drizzle slab cake.

John bakes every day and his most recent triumph was ‘an apricot and pecan loaf. I love it slathered with butter or toasted with brie and  chilli jam.’

He was pictured topless in the Manwatch section of Heat magazine and strives to keep in trim.
‘I go on a bread-free diet sometimes if I am feeling podgy,’ he says, ‘but I always find myself crawling back for a crusty loaf.’

John certainly takes bread seriously. His pet baking peeve is the ‘white bread you get in a packet, it is just a nonsense. It is not good for you because it is full of chemicals and other rubbish.’
He says of the competition: ‘I think I learned more in the weeks that we were on Bake Off than in the 20 years I had been baking before.’

• RECIPE FOR THE FUTURE

He might have done a law degree, but John now realises he doesn’t want to be a lawyer.  ‘It is not for me, I don’t like the way they work, I don’t want to go into law.
Now that I have finished my degree, I can focus on the one thing that I want to do — baking, cooking and writing about it.’

Now John wants to study patisserie and then ‘open a chain of bakeries and coffee shops with a patisserie type of focus’.

THE PASTRY PIN-UP

Medical student James Morton has become a housewives’ favourite, known to his fans as the hunk in the tank top. Women love the way his spectacles steam up when he pulls his bakes from the oven — and also the fact that he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

The 21-year-old sometimes ‘wings it’, and his motto seems to be: ‘If in doubt, put more figs on it.’ When his gingerbread house became a structural calamity in week eight, he turned it into a Derelict Barn, complete with caramel cobwebs, ‘winging it’ straight into the semi-final.

He sometimes bamboozles viewers with bakes that no one has ever heard of before, including his ‘banana and hefeweizen puddings’ or ‘clootie dumplings with crème Ecossaise’.

• BIGGEST DISASTER

James says: ‘My biggest disaster was the gingerbread thing, to be honest. I thought I was going home that week, but it turned out OK in the end. The judging is very fair — they judge on looks first, but primarily on taste.’

• BAKING BACKGROUND

James grew up in the Shetland Isles, where his mother is a local GP and his father is the author, journalist and BBC Scotland broadcaster Tom Morton.
An idyllic childhood featured seals on the beach and unlimited supplies of tank tops. His grandmother lived next door and taught him everything he knows.

‘My interest was nurtured by my granny from when I was tiny. I would go to her house after school and she taught me the basics; the pastries, the apple pies, the Victoria sponges, all the British classics — and from a Mary Berry cookbook.

‘Sadly, Granny has passed away, but she did teach my sister, too. And when my sis came to the final, Mary told her that she should enter the Bake Off next year.’

Like Brendan, the first thing James baked was an apple pie.

‘I remember working the pastry as if it was dough, which is exactly the wrong thing to do,’ he says.
Despite his new-found heartthrob status, James has been dating fellow medical student Fenella Barlow-Pay for 18 months.

They study and live together in Glasgow, although he says he doesn’t bake her anything special.
‘She gets what’s she’s given. For the last year I’ve been practising so hard for the Bake Off there hasn’t been time for anything else.’

However, life has become a bit more complicated since he became the GBBO’s resident pin-up: ‘I’m OK in Tesco,’ says James. ‘But Waitrose in Glasgow is the real danger zone. I get stopped three or four times at least. It is all a bit surreal.

‘Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I must say, my girlfriend and I find it quite hilarious.’

• RECIPE FOR THE FUTURE

There’s no culinary future for James, sadly. ‘I will be keeping baking on as a hobby, but I am happy to continue with my pursuit to become a doctor,’ he explains.

THE BILLY ELLIOT

Brendan lynch won ‘star baker’ twice and is GBBO’s most accomplished and experienced baker. His attention to detail is justifiably famous.
Who else but Brendan would use a retractable builder’s tape measure to size up his savoury crackers, paint chocolate eyelashes onto his fondant bluebirds or make a bevy of choux pastry swans in the petits-four challenge?
His favourite GBBO bake? ‘My tangerine and orange torte in week four.’

• BIGGEST DISASTER

The technical challenge in tonight’s final, to be honest. ‘We had to make these iced squares and you have to dip them into this gloopy pink fondant and oh, I thought it was the messiest thing ever. That was my most embarrassing moment.’

• BAKING BACKGROUND

Born in Kells in Ireland in 1949, Brendan was the seventh of eight children. His mother died when he was a boy, and there were no cookery books in the house.

He started baking at the age of 11, making pastry from flour and water, rolling it out with a milk bottle and putting apples and sugar in the middle. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing; it must have tasted disgusting, but I had a go,’ he says.

‘However, I grew up in a strict Catholic, rural family where boys didn’t do baking — girls did. It was stamped out of me and I didn’t bake again until I was 28. It was a touch of the Billy Elliots.’

Entirely self-taught, Brendan learned to bake with a Raymond Blanc book. Sometimes he would ring up Blanc’s restaurant when he couldn’t get something to work, and even got through to the main man. ‘He once told me I was using the wrong apples,’ he says.

Today, he lives in Sutton Coldfield with his partner Jason Hart, a lecturer at Bath University. The couple underwent a civil partnership ceremony in 2005, three years after meeting. ‘He likes spicy bakes, so I make him a Bundt cake with spicy apples,’ Brendan says.

Brendan runs a middle management recruitment company and has designed more than 40 gardens (his own has been featured on TV and in magazines).
He is also a grade eight cellist and hopes to be part of a string quartet soon. He is also halfway through a project to bake all the breads of the world.

‘I don’t dabble,’ he says. You can say that again. His attention to detail has been obvious all along, but particularly showed in the week eight showstopper challenge. Brendan baked a thatched gingerbread bird’s house, complete with Shredded Wheat roof and coconut grass lawn.

Judge Paul Hollywood said it gave him nightmares, but Brendan had the last laugh, with thousands clamouring for the recipe for the house. ‘I just wanted to make something a mother and children could bake together,’ he says.

• RECIPE FOR THE FUTURE

Brendan says: ‘A few years ago I saw what Gareth Malone did with introducing singing in retirement homes and giving people a new interest. I thought: “I can do that.” I really want to take baking into retirement homes.

 

THE GREAT BAKE SPIN-OFFS

From a humble bag of flour to £430 mixers, The Great British Bake Off’s popularity has  given baking goods a huge sales spike as inspired fans attempt their own signature bakes at home . . .

• BAKING ingredient sales are up ten per cent at Morrisons since the series started. Marks & Spencer has had a similar boom, with sales of wholemeal flour up by 69 per cent, plain flour by 20 per cent and self-raising flour up 10 per cent.
• THREE-TIER cake-stands, like the ones contestants present their bakes on each week, have risen by 243 per cent at M&S.
• SALES of expensive food mixers, such as the £430 stand-alone KitchenAid on the show, have leapt by 48 per cent year-on-year at John Lewis.
• ICING and cake decoration sales are up 46 per cent, and cooking chocolate by 40 per cent at Waitrose. Even ready-made cake mix sales are up 47 per cent, revealing that cheats can be inspired, too. 
• BOOKINGS for afternoon tea — complete with cucumber sandwiches, fairy cakes and scones — have overtaken lunch reservations in many hotels. 
• BAKING accessories such as oven mitts, scales and measuring jugs are up 38 per cent at Debenhams, and the firm has rushed out a range of pastel bakeware to cash in.
• WHEN 77-year-old grandmother-of-five Mary Berry wore a bright floral bomber jacket from Zara on the show, it sold out online that night. The jackets are now selling for £250 on eBay.