The Great British Bake Off crowns its 2021 winner

(Left to right) Bake Off finalists Giuseppe, Crystelle and Chigs

Spoiler alert! If you do not want to know the result of the Great British Bake Off final, please look away now...

Giuseppe celebrated victory on Tuesday after what judges on the Channel 4 show described as the closest finale yet.

The 45-year-old Bristol resident pipped this year's fellow finalists Chigs and Crystelle, who all had to make food for a Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

"There are no words, I am speechless for once," said the show's first Italian winner.

In the final episode, he made dough filled with chocolate and hazelnuts, shaped in the form of a giant mushroom. He also produced mango and passion fruit panna cottas, orange and fig heart-shaped muffins, and asparagus and pea-filled choux pastries shaped like a caterpillar.

Series 12 of the show saw a dozen bakers initially enter the Bake Off bubble at the start of the competition in September, before judges Paul Hollywood and Dame Prue Leith turned the heat up on them with a series of knock-out challenges over 10 episodes.

They set the final three bakers three tasks: to make carrot cake, produce Belgian buns and recreate a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, while showing four different baking disciplines.

This year's winner Giuseppe (centre), alongside judges Paul Hollywood and Dame Prue Leith (left), and hosts Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding

The victorious Giuseppe dedicated his win to his parents. "All I can think of is the reaction from my mum and dad," he continued.

"The fact is that everything I have done to deserve this comes from his [my dad's] heritage, it's the best thank you note I can possibly send him.

"He is going through a very bad time health-wise, so I think this is going to be a great boost.

"I don't say often or lightly that I am proud of what I do, but in this case I am really proud of what I have done. It's unbelievable!"

Italian job

Giuseppe's achievement arrives in the same year that his compatriots won Euro 2020 and Eurovision. "I feel it's been a great year for Italy," he noted on the show.

"I truly can't believe it or take it in, this has made me so incredibly happy to be a Britalian. Dell'Anno is my surname which translates in English to 'of the year' - and I feel this has certainly been my year."

Hollywood said he had "done an incredible job".

"The first time I walked into the tent and in the first signature I saw his mini rolls, I thought that looks like our winner, you could see the heart and soul going into his baking," declared the judge.

Fellow judge, the recently-honoured Dame Prue added: "He is such a classic beautiful baker and he represents a long tradition of classic Italian baking. He has done it brilliantly all the way through.

"I am going home to make much more Italian cakes because they really are good."

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