Complete season guide
Complete season breakdown
Series 9 puts two heats through cake, biscuit, bread, pastry, and dessert days before American, Toy, Spooky, and Patisserie finals themes and a coronation final. This guide records all thirty challenges and adds one original cinnamon-snail bun adaptation for home bakers.
Episode 1 · Cake
The first heat flattens a three-dimensional sponge into a comic-style cartoon cake and imagines time travel through cake.
Technical
Cartoon cake
Bake and decorate a three-dimensional cake so that it appears to be a flat, two-dimensional comic illustration.
Showstopper
Time-travel cake
Create a cake showing where or when the baker would visit through time travel.
Episode 2 · Biscuits
Biscuit Day hides fillings inside monster cookies and models world-changing inventions in biscuit form.
Technical
Stuffed monster cookies
Bake chocolate cookies with concealed centres and finish them as expressive monsters.
Showstopper
World's-greatest-invention biscuit
Build an edible biscuit representation of the invention the baker considers the world's greatest.
Episode 3 · Bread
The bakers coil enriched dough into cinnamon snails and pack an imagined desert-island meal into a sculpted loaf.
Technical
Cinnamon snails
Shape cinnamon-filled enriched dough into snail buns and decorate the finished characters consistently.
Showstopper
Desert-island meal loaf
Create a bread centrepiece representing the complete meal the baker would want on a desert island.
Episode 4 · Pastry
Pastry Day constructs a train from filled choux and uses more choux work for portraits of favourite pop stars.
Technical
Choux choux train
Pipe, bake, fill, and assemble choux pastry into a decorated train.
Showstopper
Pop-star choux portrait
Create a recognisable portrait of a favourite pop star using filled choux pastry.
Episode 5 · Dessert
The last day of the first heat balances pavlova in ballet-themed forms and rolls sponge into favourite animals.
Technical
Tutu pavlovas
Make crisp, delicate individual pavlovas and decorate them with a ballet-tutu design.
Showstopper
Favourite-animal roulade
Bake, fill, roll, and decorate a roulade to resemble the baker's favourite animal.
Episode 6 · Cake
The second heat begins with alien-shaped madeleines and fantasy dream homes built from cake.
Technical
Mad alien madeleines
Bake shell-shaped madeleines and turn them into a consistent set of decorated alien characters.
Showstopper
Fantasy dream-home cake
Build the baker's imagined dream home in cake form.
Episode 7 · Biscuits
The bakers capture Harry Hill in chai-latte biscuits and pack messages for their future selves into biscuit time capsules.
Technical
Harry Hill chai-latte biscuits
Bake chai-spiced biscuits and decorate them as recognisable portraits of Harry Hill.
Showstopper
Biscuit time capsule
Construct and fill a biscuit time capsule designed for the baker's future self.
Episode 8 · Bread
Bread Day reshapes a seasonal classic as hot cross bunnies and turns new knowledge into bread-based centrepieces.
Technical
Hot cross bunnies
Make spiced hot cross buns shaped and decorated as rabbits.
Showstopper
Bread-ucational centrepiece
Create a bread centrepiece showing the coolest thing the baker learned during the previous year.
Episode 9 · Pastry
The technical conceals a pie filling beneath an optical trick, while the showstopper pays tribute to role models in choux.
Technical
Invisible filling pie
Bake a pie designed to appear empty even though it contains a concealed sweet filling.
Showstopper
Role-model choux sculpture
Make a recognisable choux-pastry tribute to one of the baker's role models.
Episode 10 · Dessert
The last heat day coils thin crepes into a roll and sets a nature-inspired meringue tart as the final route to Finals Week.
Technical
Crepe roll
Layer, fill, and tightly roll thin crepes into a clean spiral dessert.
Showstopper
Natural-world meringue tart
Create a meringue-topped tart whose design celebrates the natural world.
Episode 11 · American
Finals Week begins with red velvet whoopie pies and large cakes designed for Thanksgiving.
Technical
Red velvet whoopie pies
Bake matching red velvet cake-like cookies and sandwich them with a smooth filling.
Showstopper
Thanksgiving cake
Create a celebration cake inspired by Thanksgiving.
Episode 12 · Toys
Toy Day miniaturises sponge and decoration into doll's-house cakes, then recreates favourite childhood toys from macarons.
Technical
Doll's-house cakes
Make a precise set of miniature decorated cakes scaled for a doll's-house display.
Showstopper
Favourite-toy macaron sculpture
Recreate a favourite childhood toy as a display made from macarons.
Episode 13 · Spooky
The quarterfinal fills chocolate cauldrons with edible slime and builds haunted houses from gingerbread.
Technical
Chocolate cauldrons with slime and biscuit spoons
Make chocolate cauldrons filled with edible slime and serve them with matching biscuit spoons.
Showstopper
Haunted gingerbread house
Construct and decorate a freestanding haunted house from gingerbread.
Episode 14 · Patisserie
The semifinal tests a light cloud cake before turning favourite holidays into collections of miniature tartlets.
Technical
Chiffon cloud cake
Bake a high, airy chiffon cake and apply the cloud-themed finish from Ravneet Gill's reduced instructions.
Showstopper
Favourite-holiday mini tartlets
Create a coordinated set of miniature tartlets showcasing the baker's favourite holiday.
Episode 15 · Final
The regal final sets a Charlotte Royale technical and closes with celebration cakes fit for a coronation.
Technical
Charlotte Royale
Line a domed dessert with patterned Swiss-roll slices and fill it cleanly to make a classic Charlotte Royale.
Showstopper
Cake fit for a coronation
Create a grand celebration cake suitable for a coronation.
Inspired by the briefs
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 3
Soft cinnamon coils with simple dough heads and a light vanilla glaze, shaped for a playful home-baking version of Bread Day's technical.
This is an original Baking Show Guide home adaptation inspired by the challenge brief, not a contestant recipe or an official show recipe.
The shaping and glaze are simplified for ordinary baking trays and do not reproduce the technical's exact design.
Leave a small gap in each coil so the expanding dough has room to rise without unrolling.
Challenge details verified 2026-07-14. channel4.com, tvmaze.com, thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk, thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk.
The winner stays hidden until you choose to reveal it.
Tilly
Everyone recorded for Season 9, listed alphabetically without result spoilers.
| Baker | Age | Hometown |
|---|---|---|
| Tilly | n/a | n/a |