After winning Star Baker last week, Lottie’s 80s Week Showstopper – an ode to cassette tapes – melted and it was sadly time to say pud-bye. We sat down with Lottie for a cuppa and a quick chat about her time in the Bake Off bubble:
‘I cannot believe the stuff that I have done. I got a handshake and a Star Baker – maybe I can bake!
I think the Curse of the Star Baker truly struck. It’s a release, but obviously I am gutted. I literally had packed two outfits, and here I am in week seven wearing everyone else’s clothes. I had run out of oomph by that stage, and I knew it was my time to go. I was ready to go, I had packed to go home, and I couldn’t imagine a better group of people to leave in the tent to carry on the baking. I had absolutely no idea that I would get that far, so to get to week seven was beyond my wildest baking dreams. And I felt that leaving at that stage and getting Star Baker the week before, I could walk out of the tent feeling I had achieved more than I thought possible.
‘My highlight has to be getting Star Baker in Japanese Week, of all the weeks! I was really shocked. I did a lot of research on Japanese baking and as I did background reading, I got really into it. We were all learning new techniques and it felt the playing field was a bit more level, as we were all unsure of what we were facing.
‘The melting ice cream was a disaster. Basically, I changed the design of my Showstopper the day before, I wanted it to be an 80s cassette tape. I decided to make soft-serve ice cream to go round the outside, but it just totally melted, all on my bench, all on the floor, everywhere! By the time it came to judging it looked awful and I was absolutely mortified. I looked at it and thought really I could have come up with something cleverer than that.
‘It really boosted my confidence getting positive feedback from Prue. Baking for Prue was a dream come true, the fact that she tasted my food and liked it, and was really supportive in her feedback which was lovely. She is like the perfect headmistress and I just wanted to do her proud.
‘I spend my life being backstage, I don’t chase the limelight, so waking up that first morning when we were announced and seeing my face on the front page of a newspaper was a shock to say the least and I had to start getting used to it. Social media has been generally positive and the rock and metal community have been hugely supportive. Vikings have come out of the woodwork [people who go to Viking festivals, and have Viking tattoos], also the am-dram world has taken me on as one of their own and been rooting for me. The kindness of strangers, including metal heads, has been so good and they have said they want to have a go at baking. Those were the messages that I appreciated the most.
‘The thing I’ll miss most is the other bakers – I genuinely know that I will stay in touch with these guys, it’s not a throwaway line. I will be watching them every week, encouraging them and catching up with them. It sounds such a cliché, but we were living cheek by jowl, and I lived with them for a month, so our closeness was so tight as we were together for a lot of the time.
‘GBBO has definitely given me more confidence. I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing something like this a couple of years ago but all of the production team, and family and friends gave me the confidence to go ahead with it and I’m so glad I did. I CAN BAKE after all.
Lottie will join Jo Brand and Tom Allen on The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice on Friday 6th November at 8pm on Channel 4.