'My Bake Off is over but I never expected to get on the show'

A group picture of the 2025 Bake Off contestants. Some people are stood and others are sat down in a large tent decorated with union jack bunting. There are some pictures on the walls, plants in pots and some baking bowls on shelves. — Image caption,
The cast of the latest series of Bake Off

Tom MacDougall

BBC News, Yorkshire

3 September 2025

A Great British Bake Off contestant has described his time on the show as "light and fluffy with some soggy bottoms involved".

Thirty-year-old scientist Hassan, from Rotherham, was eliminated in the first episode of the show's 16th series.

Hassan said: "That's part of the experience, there's a lot of things you enjoy and don't enjoy - it's about taking both of them forward."

The Channel 4 programme pits 12 amateur bakers against each other to compete for the title of "Star Baker" throughout 30 different challenges.

Hassan, a man of South Asian heritage, wearing an apron and laughing. — Image caption,
Hassan, from Rotherham, was eliminated in the first episode of the latest Great British Bake Off series

Hassan applied for the competition himself "quite early on".

"When you think that they take so many applicants and bring it down to such a minute amount of people who actually get in the tent, it's ridiculous," he said.

"The fact that I actually did get on, I honestly never expected it."

His love of sweet treats was inspired by his Pakistani heritage, he told the show's producers, and he was especially fond of praline and nut-based flavours found in traditional Asian recipes.

Hassan's chocolate, coffee, and caramel Swiss roll. It has fallen apart, with caramel pooling underneath the flat and crumbled cake. — Image caption,
Judge Paul Hollywood said Hassan's Swiss roll looked like it was "dropped out of a tree"

The competition's first week saw contestants baking a Swiss roll and a cake designed to look like a landscape scene.

Judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood were impressed by the taste of Hassan's chocolate, coffee, and caramel Swiss roll - but visually, it didn't quite hold up.

"Flavour-wise, it's stunning, absolutely delicious. But it looks like it's been dropped out of a tree," said Hollywood.

Similarly, his bamboo forest-themed sponge failed to take the cake, being branded by Hollywood as looking like "a dream, but a pretty bad one, to be honest".