Bake Off’s New Season Gets Underway With Almighty Innuendo That Has Everyone Howling

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Prue Leith and her new pal Norman
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Prue Leith and her new pal Norman

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of the Great British Bake Off.

While you might associate clumsy Great British Bake Off innuendos more with the Mel and Sue era, Prue Leith brought them back in spectacular fashion during Tuesday night’s launch show.

And it all had to do with a certain mischievous rodent.

During the first Showstopper challenge of the new season, the new batch of bakers were tasked with putting together an elaborate cake shaped like an animal of their choosing, with former flight attendant Nicky opting for a beaver, having once dressed up as one.

So far, so innocent, right? And while there were a few titters when Prue claimed she wasn’t “even sure what a beaver looks like”, it wasn’t until she encouraged Nicky to “tell us about your beaver” that the entire tent – not to mention viewers watching at home – descended into fits of laughter.

The fun didn’t stop there, either, with Paul Hollywood lamenting behind the scenes that Nicky’s bake (who, incidentally, she’d named Norman) “looked amazing, but it was bone dry”.

“I don’t like dry beavers, do you?” new addition Alison Hammond was then heard joking, all of which sparked some big reactions over on X (formerly known as Twitter)…

Tuesday’s episode marked Alison Hammond’s debut as host, having taken over as Noel Fielding’s co-host from Matt Lucas earlier this year.

Perhaps ironically, Prue previously spoke of her excitement at having Alison join her in the Bake Off tent, as she thought the daytime star might bring some maturity to the tent.

“I love Matt Lucas and I’m sure we’ll be friends for life,” she claimed. “But the fact is, when there were three men and me, because there were numbers of them, they just got sillier and sillier and I never understand the jokes.

“They can go into hysterics about the word sausage. They’re like four year olds. So, I’m looking forward to having a woman around.”

Alison received a huge thumbs up from viewers – as did the whole episode, which many hailed as a return to form for the long-running baking show.

The Great British Bake Off continues on Tuesday night at 9pm on Channel 4.