Frances Quinn Reveals What Really Happens In The Great British Bake Off Tent - Exclusive
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
Every season of "The Great British Bake Off" is just as exciting as the last. Each season, contestants head into a giant tent on a lush green, beautifully manicured lawn to battle it out for Star Baker. After weeks of challenges, one is ultimately declared the winner in the final.
But certainly, baking in a giant tent is a bit different of a set-up than your typical cooking show studio. It's a confined space, which can certainly come with a number of challenges to navigate alongside tackling whatever task the judges have set forth. And we wanted to learn more about it.
To get all the details on the "Great British Bake Off" tent, we went straight to the source. In an exclusive interview with Mashed, Season 4 winner Frances Quinn shared all about it, from the number of people in the tent to the temperature inside and all of the other challenges it presents as bakers battle it out.
Frances Quinn shares that temperature was a huge factor inside the tent
When you're at home baking in your own kitchen, controlling the temperature in your house is typically easy. Especially if you have air conditioning, you can control the climate to be sure your kitchen isn't too hot and that the heat won't affect your bake.
In a giant tent packed with people on a television show, you can't exactly do that. "Dealing with the different temperature [was difficult] because you're in a tent," Frances Quinn said. "And every weekend, particularly being over in Britain, the weather is very unpredictable."
In addition to battling it out in a warm tent, contestants on "The Great British Bake Off" have to work around plenty of people in the tent. "So many people. And just also having to almost be interviewed while also trying to bake and then having Mary and Paul and Mel and Sue there," Quinn recalled. "Dealing with lots of questions being chucked at you and the amount of cameramen and just people around you was very different to my own kitchen at home where it was a much more relaxed pace."
Frances Quinn says time is the enemy on 'The Great British Bake Off'
Inside the tent, with plenty of high temps and people, the contestants are also battling time. And Quinn said that part may have been the worst. "The time is the absolute enemy on that show because you just don't have a lot of time to bake and cool everything before putting it all together and assembling it all," she said. "I was so used to just baking at home in the kitchen with the radio on and just almost using it as a form of downtime. Whereas there, it was full-on adrenaline."
According to Quinn, she and her fellow bakers were in the tent for hours upon hours making for long days. On the first weekend, they stayed at hotels half an hour away from the tent, with a 5 a.m. wake-up call to get on the baker's bus. Once on location, bakers had to be mic'd up, equipment was checked, and then it was finally time to start baking. "They were long, long days, but the time of the bakes, that just went so quickly. You just always felt you needed at least another hour," she said.
For recipes from Frances Quinn, grab her book "Quintessential Baking."