Bexhill’s star baker wins challenge on Great British Bake Off

In the episode, broadcast on Tuesday night, Linda, a retirement-living team leader from Bexhill, advanced to the fourth week of the show.

The theme of this week’s episode was bread, which saw the remaining ten contestants tasked with making both a sweet and a savoury soda bread for the first challenge and multi-coloured bagels for the second. For the final challenge, the contestants had to make an ambitious, artistic showstopping plaque inspired by something in their life.

In the first challenge, Linda opted for a Welsh Bara quick bread containing chilli, cheddar, Parmesan and coriander. For her sweet soda bread, Linda chose to make Welsh tea cakes.

Judge Prue Leith was complimentary of the flavours but said the bread could have done with longer in the oven. Paul Hollywood also complimented Linda but said all the flavour had been pushed to the outside, rather than in the loaf.

In the second challenge, contestants were tasked with making six rainbow-coloured bagels, containing five different colours.

The technical challenge, which is judged blindly, proved difficult for a number of the bakers, but was very successful for Linda. Both judges praised the appearance and shape of the bagels, and described the taste as ‘lovely’. Linda was crowned the winner of this challenge.

Afterwards, she said: “Oh wow! What a high! I can’t wait to tell my family. I can’t wait to tell (my partner) Richard. I might ring him up and go ‘arghhh’.”

Riding high from winning the second challenge, Linda made a ‘fruits of our labour’ plaque made from black olive bread and tiger bread for the final showstopping challenge.

The design was inspired by her childhood in which she would often milk the cows on her aunt’s farm. She said it was ‘all about the circle of life and celebrating the good life’. Prue Leith complimented Linda on the design of her bake, but Paul Hollywood said it needed more flavour.

Overall, Linda lived to fight another week and is now among the remaining nine bakers. Next week’s theme will be chocolate.