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The “Great Family Bake Off”

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My family absolutely loves watching “The Great British Baking Show” together. It’s the one thing I can “bribe” my kids with as we fold laundry and I will do almost anything to get out of folding laundry for six people by myself. We enjoy watching the creative bakes, salivating over the treats, love learning about the British culture and seeing the lighthearted competition between competitors turned friends. After watching a few seasons together over the past few months my kids started talking about creating our own baking competition to mimic the show. 

Free printable at the end of this post

Bake Off Challenges

The “Great British Bake Off” as it is called in Great Britain, takes place over the course of many weekends. One episode covers a Saturday and Sunday of competition. Participants compete in three challenges:

  1. Signature Bake
  2. Technical Challenge 
  3. Show-Stopper Challenge

Because we have so much time on our hands right now with kids home from school, we have been looking for some creative ways to have fun, so I decided to acquiesce to the request and make our very own “Great Family Bake Off” competition. This would also make for a very fun birthday party, extended family reunion challenge or just something to do on a Saturday afternoon or summer weekday. In the spirit of fun and to give you something to make a long “Covid-19” day not so long…I give you everything you need to create your own “Great Family Bake Off!”

My four kids “competed.” I had to help my youngest through some of the challenges but I was surprised with the amount he could do. This would be perfect if he was paired up with a buddy…we just don’t have anyone extra around us right now with our “quarantine” situation

In creating this competition, I wanted to keep the three original challenges but tone some of them down a little to meet the abilities of my grade-school kids. I needed bakes that we could accomplish in a few hours and not a few days. After thinking it over, I came up with our version of “The Great Family Bake Off.”

Judging

You will need to find a moderator/judge(s) to be in charge of the event. This will preferably be a couple of adults. They will make sure to have all of the ingredients needed, prepare the secret technical challenge and judge the competition. You can print this printable for a rundown of the moderator/judge’s responsibilities.

The Bakes

Signature Bake: Finger Sandwiches

  • The signature bake is finger sandwiches. You need four identical finger sandwiches with tasty fillings. Judging will be based on presentation, taste and meeting the time requirement. You have 20 minutes for this challenge and the bread will be provided for you.
Finger Sandwiches

Technical Challenge: Personal Pan Brownies

  • In this challenge we take one basic recipe with the same ingredients and instructions and ask you to produce a perfect finished product. The moderator/judge will prepare the ingredients and kitchen tools beforehand. Then they will hand out the recipe (with no instructions or bake time!) and start the timer for 45 minutes. The brownies will be judged blind with no clues as to who made what.
Four entries for the technical bake

Show-Stopper Challenge: Cupcake Art

  • This is the final challenge to showcase your skill and talent. Judging will be on the professional appearance of your signature bakes. Judges will be looking for the most impressive and elaborate creations. The challenge is cupcake art. Use 4 cupcakes, icing and decorations. The cupcakes, icing and decorations will be provided for you. You have 30 minutes to perfect your show-stopper creations.
Such creative Cupcake Art

The challenges give enough hands-on creativity to be fun but don’t take hours to complete. Only one of the bakes requires an oven. You can change these up to fit your own family dynamic as you wish. Plan for a total time of 3-4 hours to complete this entire Great Family Bake Off! It will take some time but is so much fun and you will make awesome family memories. My kids are still talking about it!

7 Comments

  1. Kris Larsen

    Wow Mom Wow!! 🤸‍♂️ This is such a fabulous idea! We LOVED watching the video… so cute and fun fun fun!! Master chefs, ALL, and parentals score: 💯‼️
    👩‍🍳👨‍🍳👨‍🍳👨‍🍳

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  3. Marian O'Brien

    Every year I have Nana Camp. All of my grandchildren are present (6 total – ages range from 2 to 12). This summer we are doing The Great Nana Camp Bake Off as one of our events. I just finished making them aprons and they will get to personalize them with fabric paint the day before the bake off. Many thanks for supplying so many great ideas for our fun challenges. I have chosen your brownie idea for the technical challenge.

    Our Signature Bake will be a Mug Cake and our showstopper will be a pizza topper (we have a pizza oven here they are all very anxious to use). Thanks again!

    • I love this! They will have so much fun. We just did one last weekend and it really is a highlight of the year for my kids. I love the pizza topping idea and the mug cake is perfect too!

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