Bake Off: The Professionals episode 1 2022: Liam Charles and new-co-host Stacey Solomon present the return of the Channel 4 baking challenge with knobs on, as patisserie teams from establishments in Manchester, Cumbria, Wiltshire, Birmingham and London compete to be crowned the best in Britain. To kick things off, no-nonsense judges Benoit Blin and Cherish Finden set the pastry chefs a challenge to create 36 individual strawberry cakes and a chocolate sculpture, with no recipe to work from. For their showpiece, they are tasked to transform an ordinary treacle tart into a fine dining experience
Yet again the pre-title sequence features one fabulous showstopper after another crashing to the ground. Presenters Liam Charles and Stacey Solomon (taking over from Tom Allen) can only stare open-mouthed in horror.Before that though, the six teams of patissiers have a surprise challenge: to make 36 strawberry fraisier cakes and a chocolate amenity. That’s a small chocolate sculpture if, like me, you didn’t know. Then they must reinvent the treacle tart.
The search for Britain’s best patisserie team returns. Liam Charles and new host Stacey Solomon welcome a fresh batch of pastry chefs.
Bake Off: The Professionals episode 1 2022
Bake Off: The Professionals (previously Bake Off: Crème de la Crème from 2016–2017) is a British television baking competition featuring teams of professional pastry chefs pit against one another through two different challenges. It is a spin-off from The Great British Bake Off, and its first episode was screened on BBC Two on 29 March 2016. The eight-episode first series of the programme was presented by Tom Kerridge, with Benoit Blin, Cherish Finden and Claire Clark serving as judges.
The second series was presented by Angus Deayton, but Claire Clark did not return as a judge. The third series moved to Channel 4 to join The Great British Bake Off after the BBC declined to renew the series. The Channel 4 series has been renamed Bake Off: The Professionals, and is presented by comedian Tom Allen and former contestant on the main series, Liam Charles.
The first series was won by the Squires Kitchen Cookery School team led by Mark Tilling, followed by a team of military chefs led by Liam Grime, a team from London Hilton Park Lane with Emmanuel Bonneau, Thibault Marchand and Erica Sangiorgi from Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel, and Laurian Veaudor and Thibault Courtoisier from Cocorico Patisserie.
The series is a competition between teams of professional pastry chefs from high-end hotels and restaurants, as well as supermarkets, armed forces and other companies and organisations. The competition aims to find the finest pastry chefs in the country, who can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary and can create desserts that have “stunning visual impact, phenomenal flavour, and texture”.