The Great Canadian Baking Show Season 5

Complete season breakdown

Every episode and bake

Season 5 ranges across cake, cookies, celebration baking, bread, pies and tarts, caramel, patisserie, and the finale. This guide records all 24 challenge briefs from episode-specific CBC pages and detailed reference tables, and includes one original home adaptation inspired by the opening technical.

1. Episode 1 · Cake

   Cake

   Oct 17, 2021

   Cake Week begins with decorated pound cakes, tests uniform jam-filled lamingtons, and finishes with cakes whose decoration creates an exposed fault-line illusion.

   • Signature

     Decorated pound cake

     Create a decorated pound cake in any flavour in two hours.

   • Technical

     20 raspberry lamingtons

     Make 20 light sponge lamingtons in one hour 45 minutes, sandwiching the layers with raspberry jam and coating them in chocolate glaze and coconut.

   • Showstopper

     Fault-line cake

     Build and decorate a cake in three hours 30 minutes with a deliberate crack that reveals a contrasting design within.

   Make our home version →Episode source 1Episode source 2

2. Episode 2 · Cookies

   Cookies

   Oct 24, 2021

   Cookie Week combines patterned icebox sandwiches, thin chocolate-striped pirouettes, and a large image assembled from colourful edible tiles.

   • Signature

     12 patterned icebox sandwich cookies

     Make 12 sandwich cookies in two hours 15 minutes using multicoloured icebox dough that reveals an intricate sliced pattern and a complementary filling.

   • Technical

     20 chocolate-hazelnut pirouettes

     Create 20 thin, hollow rolled wafer cookies in two hours, each striped with chocolate and filled with chocolate-hazelnut cream.

   • Showstopper

     Cookie mosaic

     Assemble colourful cookie tiles on an edible cookie base to form a mosaic in four hours.

   Episode source 1Episode source 2Episode source 3

3. Episode 3 · Celebration baking

   Celebration

   Oct 31, 2021

   Celebration Week starts with occasion eclairs, layers sponge and mousse under a spider-web mirror glaze, and closes with a wedding centrepiece made from multiple meringue styles.

   • Signature

     Celebration eclairs

     Create eclairs for a special occasion in two hours.

   • Technical

     Spider-web mirror glaze cake

     Make a layered sponge-and-mousse cake over a peanut base in two hours 30 minutes, finishing it with mirror glaze, a spider-web pattern, and a tuile.

   • Showstopper

     Meringue wedding centrepiece

     Build a wedding centrepiece from multiple types of meringue in four hours.

   Episode source 1Episode source 2Episode source 3

4. Episode 4 · Bread

   Bread

   Nov 7, 2021

   Bread Week moves from filled braided babka to pineapple buns with freshly made butter and a fully edible basket containing two or more breads.

   • Signature

     Sweet or savoury babka

     Bake a braided babka with a sweet or savoury filling in two hours 30 minutes.

   • Technical

     12 pineapple buns

     Make 12 bolo bao in two hours 30 minutes and churn butter to fill six of them as bolo yau.

   • Showstopper

     Edible bread basket

     Create an elaborate bread vessel in four hours 30 minutes and fill it with at least two different breads.

   Episode source 1Episode source 2

5. Episode 5 · Pies and tarts

   Pies and Tarts

   Nov 14, 2021

   The bakers interpret Canadian provinces in sweet pastry, make Portuguese custard tarts, and raise two-tier pies from hot-water-crust pastry.

   • Signature

     Province-inspired sweet pie or tart

     Bake a sweet pie or tart inspired by a Canadian province in two hours.

   • Technical

     14 pasteis de nata

     Make 14 Portuguese egg-custard tarts in two hours 15 minutes.

   • Showstopper

     Two-tier hand-raised pies

     Build two-tier hot-water-crust pies in four hours 30 minutes, using two distinct flavours and at least two layers within the pies.

   Episode source 1Episode source 2

6. Episode 6 · Caramel

   Caramel

   Nov 21, 2021

   Caramel Week tests crisp florentines and tempered chocolate, yeast doughnuts with praline pastry cream, and a layer cake in which caramel remains the central flavour.

   • Signature

     24 florentines in two flavours

     Make 12 florentines in each of two flavours and finish them with tempered chocolate in two hours.

   • Technical

     13 caramel praline doughnuts

     Produce a baker's dozen of yeast-raised doughnuts in one hour 45 minutes, filling them with caramel-praline pastry cream and adding caramel glaze and praline.

   • Showstopper

     Caramel layer cake

     Bake a layer cake of any design and flavour in four hours, keeping caramel as the featured element.

   Episode source 1Episode source 2

7. Episode 7 · Patisserie

   Patisserie

   Nov 28, 2021

   The semifinal fills crisp vol-au-vents, makes baba au rhum without mechanical mixing, and presents three distinct types of polished petit fours.

   • Signature

     16 vol-au-vents in two flavours

     Bake 16 vol-au-vents in two hours 45 minutes and divide them between two different fillings.

   • Technical

     Baba au rhum

     Make a baba au rhum by hand, without using a mixer, in two hours.

   • Showstopper

     36 petit fours in three types

     Produce 12 each of three types of petit four in four hours, giving every type its own flavour and finish.

   Episode source 1Episode source 2

8. Episode 8 · Final

   Finale

   Dec 5, 2021

   The finalists layer mousse in a tart, coordinate several lemon components in delizie al limone, and tell their development as bakers through a final celebration cake.

   • Signature

     Multi-layer mousse tart

     Create a mousse tart in two hours 15 minutes with multiple distinct, cleanly set layers.

   • Technical

     10 delizie al limone

     Make 10 lemon sponge desserts in two hours 45 minutes with pastry cream, lemon curd, lemon whipped cream, and limoncello syrup.

   • Showstopper

     Baking journey cake

     Create a cake in four hours 30 minutes whose design and flavours tell the story of the finalist's growth as a baker.

   Episode source 1Episode source 2Episode source 3Episode source 4

Inspired by the briefs

Bake it at home

These are original Baking Show Guide adaptations for a home kitchen. They are inspired by the challenge briefs, not the contestants' recipes or an official recipe from the show.

Inspired by Episode 1

Raspberry Lamington Squares

Small vanilla sponge sandwiches filled with raspberry jam, dipped in cocoa glaze, and rolled in coconut.

Time

1 hr 9 min

Makes

16 lamingtons

Level

Medium

▶View ingredients and method

Ingredients

• 180 g unsalted butter, softened
• 180 g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 180 g self-raising flour
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 120 g seedless raspberry jam
• 250 g icing sugar
• 35 g cocoa powder
• 160 ml boiling water
• 200 g desiccated coconut

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180 C, or 160 C fan. Grease and line a 20 cm square pan.
2. Beat the butter and caster sugar until pale. Beat in the eggs one at a time and add the vanilla, then fold in the flour and milk.
3. Spread the batter in the pan and bake for 22 to 24 minutes. Cool completely, trim the edges, and cut the cake horizontally into two even layers.
4. Spread the jam over the lower layer, replace the top, and chill for 20 minutes. Cut into 16 squares.
5. Whisk the icing sugar and cocoa with enough boiling water to make a thin glaze. Dip each square, allow the excess to drain, then coat all sides with coconut and leave to set on a rack.

This is an original Baking Show Guide home adaptation, not a contestant recipe or an official show recipe.

Chilling the filled sponge before cutting reduces crumbs in the glaze.

Open the full recipe →

Episode guide sources

Challenge details verified 2026-07-14. gem.cbc.ca, en.wikipedia.org.

Season result

The winner stays hidden until you choose to reveal it.

See every Great Canadian Baking Showwinner, season by season →

Full cast

Everyone recorded for Season 5, listed alphabetically without result spoilers.

Season fact sources

en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org.