Season 1 - Episode Guide

Ten passionate homebakers take part in a `bake off', which will test every aspect of their baking skills as they battle it out to be crowned the Great British Bake Off's Best Amateur Baker. Each week the bakers are put through three challenges. The competition kicks off with cake in the Cotswolds. The bakers tackle three increasingly difficult challenges, starting off with their signature bake.

Having survived cakes, the remaining 11 bakers are tested on biscuits. Serving up signature savoury biscuits, the bakers must push themselves on flavour to create biscuits that go well with a cheese course, and Sue learns the dirty secret behind the invention of the ice cream cone and the start of the UK ice cream industry.

It is week three of the competition and the six remaining bakers are making bread in Kent. In the shadow of Sarre Windmill, the bakers will be kneading, proving and knocking back their dough under the watchful eye of baking writer Mary Berry and master baker Paul Hollywood.

The remaining five bakers travel to Bakewell in Derbyshire. They must reinvent an often-neglected British classic - the pudding. There are sticky toffee puds, peach and blueberry 'boy bait', rhubarb and orange betty and a cherry queen of puddings. The surprise bake set by judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry tests the bakers' ability to cope with pressure. Can the bakers rise to the occasion? As the puds go in the oven, Mel and Sue find out how and why puddings changed from meat to sweet, visit the birthplace of school puddings and discover how puddings helped change Britain's image overseas.

The travelling marquee pitches up in the Cornish village of Mousehole, and it's time for the bakers to get to grips with the most difficult of all baking skills - pastry. They bake their own versions of hearty British pies, get down to details with exquisite pastry canapés, and take a crash-course in crimping for this week's surprise bake. Mel and Sue will be find out that Britain's earliest pies really were humble, how pastry became an art form and how pies used to have a more sinister side. Judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood decide who will be the final three to go through to the final.

It's the Grand Final and the last three surviving contestants face their biggest challenge yet - baking for the Bake Off's Afternoon Tea Party. In order to be crowned the victor, they will need to bring together all of their skills, making cakes, bread and pastry.

Renowned baking writer Mary Berry and professional baker Paul Hollywood explore the history of the Great British wedding cake. They look at its dramatic change through the eras, from the earliest Tudor creation and the extravagant Victorian period, to wartime Britain, the affluent eighties and the present day.