The Great British Bake Off: Favourite Flavours: The official 2022 Great British Bake Off book

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Although to be fair, British TV cooks have a history of clunking cultural appropriation. Jamie Oliver, for instance, is paella non grata in Spain after his inauthentic recipe. Combine the buttermilk and salt in a jug. Mix one third into the bowl, then add one third of the flour. Continue to mix in the buttermilk and flour alternately until thoroughly combined. Her use of flavours has been exceptional, defying the judge’s initial expectations. And then there are her showstoppers! I’m still thinking about her double helix from last week. Not just because of the design, but because she dropped little facts about it while assembling the layers, because the concepts were so well thought through: “If you untangle your genetic structure, which is your helix, you will have 67 billion miles of DNA,” she said. “How mad is that?” Review:"I bought this book with a view to upping my baking game, inspired by the programme. It is based on the two Channel 4 series (8 & 9). Encouragingly, after intros by Paul and Prue, there are good bios of each baker in series 9.

Make the sponges. Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F/Gas 6. Beat the butter and sugar in a stand mixer fitted with the beater, on medium speed for 3–5 minutes, scraping down the inside of the bowl from time to time, until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, a little at a time, beating well between each addition until combined. Recipes are organised by type. There are 25 baker's signature bake recipes which do not seem to have been 'dumbed down'. (It would have been good if the bakers could have been named). In addition, there are 7 judge's recipes and 14 step-by-step guides to creating showstoppers. The remainder is contributed by members of the bake-off team and seems to belong to the same company. Review:"A staple of any baker's recipe collection, this book is absolutely fantastic for anyone with even a passing interest in baking as the recipes are simple and very easy to follow. Perfect for someone with a busy life or not much time as almost all the recipes use the one bowl method. Everything I've tried has turned out great and I absolutely swear by the basic traybake recipe - it's amazing! There is a variety of recipes including simple layered cakes, biscuits, cheesecakes and even some more challenging recipes for more adventurous bakers like a Battenburg.

Since being a contestant on series 8 of GBBO, Liam has been busy being a judge on Junior Bake Off and presenting Bake Off: The Professionals. Cheeky Treats is full of fun ideas and tip-top creations.

Assemble the cake. Remove one bowl of the icing from the fridge. Using a large, serrated knife, level the sponges, keeping any offcuts for the decoration. Slice each sponge in half horizontally so you have 6 thin sponges. Smear a little of the icing onto the middle of a cake plate or cake stand and top with the first sponge. If you know your way around the kitchen, why not try out your bakes on family and friends? If they don't have a sweet tooth, there are plenty of savoury recipes, too. Make the filling and icing. Whisk the cream cheese, cream, vanilla, icing sugar, mascarpone and salt in a stand mixer fitted with the whisk until the mixture is smooth and holds stiff peaks. Divide the icing equally between two bowls, then chill it until needed. Towards the end of this final, if you listen really carefully, you can hear a noise that sounds like a fan oven but actually turns out to be Suella Braverman firing up the Kigali-bound jet, to send Sandro, Syabira and Abdul to compete in The Great Rwandan Bake Off. As with the orangutan cake, I’m kidding, but a truth remains.

Using half of the remaining icing, spread a second thin, even layer over the top of the cake and smooth it with a palette knife. But this is nothing compared with what has been going on in the showstoppers. The concepts for this challenge have been getting increasingly wild for years, but now it feels as if the production team are seeing how far they can take it for a bet. For cake week, the bakers had to make a 3D replica of a house they once lived in. For pastry week, they were yet again having to do three-dimensional design, with pie scenes inspired by their favourite nursery rhyme or childhood story. For Halloween week (which aired two weeks before Halloween for no reason), they had to make an edible hanging lantern, which had to double up as a piñata. Why? This cookbook from the latest series has plenty of easy-to-follow recipes for you to have a go at, including buns, biscuits, pies and pastries. One of our favourites is the raspberry and salted caramel eclairs. Delicious.

In a small bowl, mix the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda together, then add this to the bowl and beat gently until the mixture is smooth.

Series 14

It is everything else that is wrong. Just look at the challenges, which increasingly feel as though they belong in a show called The Great British Cook Off. So far in this series they have had to make pizza, tacos (with steak, refried beans and guacamole fillings) and spring rolls (consisting of a ridiculous 29 ingredients.) The spring rolls this week also required a dipping sauce, whose ingredient quantities weren’t specified by Prue Leith’s instructions – leaving the bakers to freewheel combinations of fish oil, soy sauce and other flavourings. Watching it, you genuinely had to remind yourself: this is a baking competition! For Halloween week, they had to make an edible hanging lantern, which also had to double up as a piñata. Why? Syabira has been an absolute triumph from start to finish. Her baking was consistent. She was the only contestant to win Star Baker three times. In fact, as she has won the whole show (and thus the final episode) I guess that makes her a four-time Star Baker! Crude use of stereotypes … Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas dress in sombreros and ponchos for a widely lambasted Mexican week. Photograph: Triangle News/Channel 4 Here’s the thing. Even if the bakers’ creations are disappointing, Bake Off has never been a place to tear people down. It’s Bake Off! A programme that has been all about celebrating the good rather than dwelling on the bad. If you want harsh critiques, there are plenty of other shows that already cater for you. Remove the second bowl of icing from the fridge. Using a palette knife, spread half of the icing over the outside of the cake to seal and neaten. Clean the palette knife and smooth off any excess icing to create a smooth even icing layer.

No GBBO list would be complete without the queen of baking, Mary Berry, herself (we miss you on the TV Mary!) Almost every recipe inside this cookbook takes just ten minutes to prepare, so no matter how busy you are, you'll always have time to make the perfect cake.

In a small jug, mix the cocoa powder, vanilla, red food colouring and hot water together to form a paste. Add this to the bowl and mix well until combined. More striking is the fact that the three finalists are immigrants to this often mean-spirited polity. Abdul is Pakistani, Syabira made a first-week cake in the form of her native Malaysian home, while Sandro was born in Angola and now lives in London’s East End. He never imagined that someone like him would get to present his stuff on the gingham altar.