No more soggy bottoms: Bake Off to ditch innuendos for new series

Noel Fielding, Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood and contestant Rahul on the new series of Bake Off - PA
Noel Fielding, Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood and contestant Rahul on the new series of Bake Off - PA

There will be far fewer lady fingers and carpet eating when The Great British Bake Off returns to Channel 4 next week, with judge Paul Hollywood revealing that the show has decided to move away from the innuendos that once dominated the series.

Following a critics’ screening of the first episode of the new series that contained absolutely zero references to phallic food stuffs or ultimate moistness, Hollywood claimed that while he thinks innuendo is funny, it doesn’t define the show.

“I suppose it’s been part of Bake Off for a few years, but it’s not the be all and end all in Bake Off,” he claimed. “Maybe we should do an outtakes thing after 11pm.”

Added fellow judge Prue Leith, “We don’t cook them up, they just happen.”

Paul Hollywood has also defended other changes made to the show - Credit: Mark Bourdillon/Love Productions
Paul Hollywood has also defended other changes made to the show Credit: Mark Bourdillon/Love Productions

According to insiders, next week’s episode does feature a biscuit with a rather penis-shaped dollop of icing on top of it, but that it goes unmentioned when shown to the judges. Instead Hollywood remarks that it “looks like a prawn.”

Meanwhile, Hollywood has also defended the decision to move away from some of the show’s more elaborate past challenges, with Hollywood arguing that they were alienating audiences.

“I wanted to go back to basics to a point, because I think leading up to the technical challenges last year people were saying to me, ‘I can’t do that I’ve never even heard of it,’” he said. “Which is fair enough, but we want the general public to actually bake. Some of the challenges we’ve reigned in and given that little bit more information on the more challenging ones.”

Despite the changes, the Telegraph has already dubbed the new series “the very best of British TV”, albeit while noticing that the first episode is indeed “innuendo-light” in comparison to the Bake Off of old.