The seventh series of The Great British Bake Off aired from 24 August 2016, with twelve contestants competing to be crowned the series 7 winner.
This series was the last to be broadcast on BBC One, as the production company Love Productions opted to move the show to Channel 4. As such, it was also the last series to feature Sue Perkins, Mel Giedroyc, and Mary Berry.
In the United States, the seventh series was broadcast as the fourth season on PBS and streamed as Collection 4 on Netflix.
Sue Perkins does not appear in episode 2. When the episode was being filmed in April 2016 she needed time off to deal with a bereavement. She does appear vocally in the narration.
This series was won by Candice Brown, with Andrew Smyth and Jane Beedle finishing as runners-up.
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For the first challenge, the bakers were given 2 hours to make a drizzle cake, the brief being that the cake be moist and well permeated with the drizzle. For the technical challenge, the bakers were instructed to make Mary Berry's recipe for 12 jaffa cakes. The recipe used a whipped fatless sponge, orange jelly and tempered chocolate with a design of sorts. For the final challenge, the bakers were instructed to make a mirror glaze cake. The cake had to have a genoise sponge and have a very shiny, mirror-like top, covering the cake entirely, all in 3 hours.
For the Signature Challenge, the bakers were given hours to make 24 iced biscuits (cookies). The biscuits had to be crisp and uniform. 12Viennese Whirls were set as the technical challenge. To be completed in hours, they had to be filled with buttercream and jam, and had have a defined shape. For the showstopper, a gingerbread scene was set as the challenge, the only brief being it that it had to be high, and contain eight characters or objects. The bakers had 4 hours for this challenge.
Host Sue Perkins did not appear in the episode.
For the bakers' first challenge, they had to make a chocolate loaf in hours. The loaf had to contain chocolate in some form, whether it be cocoa powder or actual pieces of chocolate. For the technical challenge, the bakers were required to make 12 Dampfnudel, a recipe Paul Hollywood called "notoriously difficult". In 2 hours, the bakers had to make 12 steamed bread rolls with two types of sauce. A savoury plaited (braided) centrepiece was set as the showstopper, to be created using at least 3 different flours, in 4 hours.
The first task was to make 24 yorkshire puddings in 2 hours. The bakers used the standard recipe filled with a variety of savory ingredients and flavors. The technical challenge gave the bakers 1 hour to make 12 heart-shaped "lace" pancakes, which required them to draw a heart-shaped design with the batter. They were only allowed 1 practice pancake. The showstopper challenge was to make 36 sweet churros in 3 hours.
For the signature bake, bakers were tasked with baking 24 breakfast pastries, using 2 different batches of dough (total 12 each) in hours. The technical challenge required the bakers to make a feathered Bakewell tart in hours. For the showstopper challenge, the bakers were challenged to make 48 filled filo amuse-bouche; 24 with a savoury filling and 24 with a sweet filling, in 4 hours.
In the signature, the 7 remaining bakers were asked to create a meringue pie containing citrus fruit, such as orange, grapefruits and lemons, in 2 hours. In the technical, the contestants had to create 2 leaf-shaped herb fougasses in 2 hours. In the showstopper, the contestants were asked to create a three-tier cake with a flower theme. All the tiers could be the same flavour, or each with a different flavour, and the cakes could be decorated with flowers, all to be done in 4 hours.
The Signature challenge required the bakers to make a family-sized roulade in hours. The judges were looking for a light sponge cake, even layers of filling, and a clean swirl. The technical challenge gave the bakes 3 hours to make a marjolaine, an unusual layered cake made with meringue, decorated with ganache and nuts. The showstopper challenge allocated 4 hours for the bakers to make 24 mini mousse cakes with 2 flavours (12 of each).
Week eight featured the show's first Tudor theme, featuring food common in the 16th century. During the signature challenge, the 5 remaining bakers were asked to bake a shaped pie with Tudor flavours in 3 hours. The pie could be any type of pastry and they could use whichever fillings they wanted. In the technical, the contestants were asked to produce 12 jumblesâÂÂ6 knot balls and 6 Celtic knotsâÂÂin hours. In the showstopper challenge, the contestants were asked to bake a marchpane (marzipan) cake in a three-dimensional shape in hours. However, all of the cakes had to be Tudor-themed.
The first task for pâtisserie week required the remaining 4 contestants to bake 24 palmiers, with 2 different savoury fillings and shapes, in 3 hours. The technical challenge was to make a Savarin, a liqueur-soaked yeast cake, which none of the contestants had made before, in hours. The final challenge was to make 36 fondant fancies in hours.
In the final signature challenge, the bakers had to make a filled meringue crown, which had to contain at least three layers of meringue, in 3 hours. In the technical, the judges decided to make a familiar bake challenging: the bakers had to make a Victoria sandwich, with no recipe or method given, in hours. The final showstopper involved the largest number of bakes ever requested in a challenge. The bakers were given 5 hours to make a picnic fit for the Queen, including 1 chocolate celebration cake, 12 sausage rolls, 12 mini quiches, 12 savoury scones and 12 fruit and custard tarts.
The Masterclass episodes were replaced by two Christmas specials, which featured eight contestants from the series 2âÂÂ5. The two Christmas specials were the last to be aired on BBC before the channel move, and thus featured the last appearances of hosts Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins and judge Mary Berry. Judge Paul Hollywood then followed the channel move.
The first Christmas special featured Mary-Anne Boermans (Series 2), Cathryn Dresser (Series 3), Ali Imdad (Series 4) and Norman Calder (Series 5). The competition was won by Mary-Anne Boermans. The second Christmas special featured Janet Basu (Series 2), James Morton (Series 3), Howard Middleton (Series 4) and Chetna Makan (Series 5). The competition was won by Chetna Makan.
The signature challenge required the bakers to create 2 batches of edible Christmas tree decorations, 12 of each type, using biscuits in 2 hours. The technical challenge, set by Mary, tasked the bakers to make a choux wreath consisting of 36 choux buns, filled and decorated festively with chocolate in 2 hours. For the showstopper challenge, the bakers were required to make a Christmas scene cake, with at least three tiers, in four hours.
The bakers were tasked to make 24 savoury Christmas canapés, 12 of two types in the signature challenge, in 2<sup>1</sup>âÂÂ<sub>2</sub> hours. The technical challenge was set by Paul, in which the bakers were tasked of baking a Kanellängd, a spiced Scandinavian celebratory Christmas loaf with the meaning of "cinnamon length", in 2 hours. For the showstopper challenge, the bakers were required to make 36 sweet Christmas miniatures, 12 each of three types, arranged as a celebratory centerpiece, in 4<sup>1</sup>âÂÂ<sub>2</sub> hours.
Before the series had begun, some viewers complained of the "gendered" icing in preview pictures of the bakers. In the promo shots of the bakers, the male bakers were given blue icing while the female bakers were given pink icing, whereas the previous year, every baker was given the same colour regardless. As a result, the BBC altered the colouring of the icing.
Candice Brown was an occasional cook on ITV's This Morning. She appeared as a contestant on series 10 of Dancing on Ice in 2018. as well as on The Great New Year's Bake Off and Celebrity Mastermind which she won. She runs a pub, Green Man, in Eversholt, Bedfordshire. She has written a cookbook Comfort: delicious bakes and family treats released in 2017.
Andrew Smyth has appeared on Lorraine on ITV, Christmas Kitchen on BBC One. He baked a cake as a rotating jet engine for Prince William when he visited the Rolls-Royce factory in Derby where Smyth worked.
Several bakers participated in The Great Christmas Bake Off and The Great New Year's Bake Off in the following years. In 2017, Selasi Gbormittah and Val Stones participated in The Great Christmas Bake Off while Rav Bansal and Benjamina Ebuehi participated in The Great New Year's Bake Off with Bansal winning the special's star baker title. In 2018, Jane Beedle and Andrew Smyth participated in The Great Christmas Bake Off with Beedle winning the special's star baker title, while Candice Brown participated in The Great New Year's Bake Off.
The opening episode had an average viewing figure of 10.4 million according to overnight ratings, an improvement over the figure of 9.3 million for the corresponding episode in 2015. This made it the most watched TV show of 2016 so far, with the official figure also making it the most watched TV show since the 2015 Bake Off Final. Its run on the BBC ended with an average overnight viewing figure of 14 million for the final, peaking at 14.8 million, which is a record for the show. The series dominated the list of most-watched programmes in 2016, with nine of the top ten being episodes of the show. Its finale was watched by 15.9 million viewers (7 days cumulative figure), which makes it the most-watched TV shows in the UK in four years since the closing ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012, and the most-watched TV show of the year.
Official episode viewing figures are from BARB.