Step Into The Great British Baking Show With This Weekly At-Home Challenge

On your marks, get set, bake! If those words mean something to you, you've come to the right place. "The Great British Bake Off," or as it's called in America, "The Great British Baking Show," is a cultural institution across the pond in the U.K. Everyone might not watch "Bake Off" there, but it's pretty steeped into the country's culture. And vice versa — there's a lot of British culture in the show.

The premise is one many Americans probably aren't used to seeing in a cooking show competition: Home bakers compete weekly to gain the praise of esteemed judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood. Someone (usually) goes home every week, and another person wins the week, metaphorically crowned the Star Baker. But what's unusual to most Americans is the tone of the show (which is probably why it's so appealing to us, too): It's cozy, non-competitive, and aesthetically pleasing. There are also a lot of lessons to be learned from it.

The program returns to the U.S. on Friday, September 5 for collection 13 on Netflix. The episodes will be dropping on the platform weekly every Friday until November 7, so this is the perfect fall comfort show. If your wish is to cuddle up on the couch and watch equally impressive and disastrous bakes while mild innuendoes are tossed around, we love that for you. But if you want to take things up a notch, try the at-home baking challenge with the show.

While there's no official challenge out there for "Bake Off," many people have taken it into their own hands to create a similar experience. The baking challenge is truly customizable, so you can tailor it to your specific baking desires. Here's the basic premise: Every week before you sit down to watch the show, you bake something to sample while you watch. Now you can smell what's going on on-screen.

Instead of baking something random every week (which you can totally do, though that's more of a casual bake session than a challenge), the idea is to bake something the contestants made in the previous episode. That's the bare bones of it, but there are many more details about the challenge to come.

Now that you've decided you're doing the baking challenge, why not gather up some people to share your baked goods with? There are many benefits to inviting people over for a "Bake Off" watch party. First, you can bake as big a treat as you want, and you won't have to worry about it going bad. Secondly, you'll have people to share every laugh and gasp with while watching hosts and comedians Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond poke fun at each other and fall off of baking benches.

But the real benefit of hosting a watch party for "Bake Off?" You don't need any prior knowledge of the show to enjoy it. For that matter, your friends and family don't even need to watch every episode to know what's going on. So if someone has to miss one week, there's no harm done. They'll pick up on the next one.

For your watch party and baking challenge to feel atmospheric without putting hours of work into it, we recommend simple touches: put out fresh flowers, stick to soft, cozy lighting, and put your baked good of the week front and center, perhaps on your coffee table. You can also throw some British touches in there, since this is a quintessentially British show. Get Union Jack plates and napkins, drink out of teacups, and put up bunting. You can even put that Big Ben shot glass you bought six years ago out as a display; we know Prue Leith would approve.

Little do they know that corralling some friends and family into watching the show was just the first step. If they're willing and eager to do so, the baking challenge doesn't have to be a solo mission. You can get as many of them as you want in on it with you. There are a few different ways you can go about this.

You can all bake something to bring every week if you've got a lot of mouths to feed. You could also rotate and take turns for whoever's baking something for that episode; just be sure the people you're doing this with aren't prone to canceling at the last minute. And you could even each bake something from the signature, technical, and showstopper. But more on that in a minute.

If you're an avid baker with supplies that would rival Paul Hollywood's cabinets, you're probably set to go. But we want to note that there's really no need to spend any extra money outside of ingredients to do this challenge; you can always find at least one item per episode that doesn't require any special tools. And there are lots of hacks for making the most of what's already in your kitchen, like using Ziploc bags as piping bags.

If you do buy anything, we recommend looking at previous seasons to see what you can expect. There's always a cake week, bread week, pastry week, biscuit week, and patisserie week, and then some weeks that change theme every season. The challenge is just a great way to expand your baking horizons and get out of your comfort zone.

For tools, you should acquire measuring spoons and cups, a whisk, a big cooking spoon, a flat-headed spatula, flat baking trays, cake tins, a rolling pin, and a stand mixer or electric hand-held mixer. It would also be prudent to have piping bags and tips, a cake scraper, a cake stand, a pie dish, various sizes of baking pans, and a turntable. There are many places where you can buy your tools and even ingredients, so don't think you have to spend an outrageous amount of money. Any big box store will stock these items, but you can even check out dollar stores, Etsy, or grocery stores.

If you've been paying attention, you've probably realized that the premise of this baking challenge is to bake something the contestants made in the previous week. But there's no way to do that for the premiere ... or is there? Well, you can do things in a few different ways, as with all aspects of this challenge.

You could bake something you love, or a recipe you loved from a previous season. You could browse social media for inspiration, or ask your friends and family what they'd like to enjoy. But our favorite idea? You can make the iconic "Bake Off" intro chocolate cake, topped with raspberries, with one raspberry famously missing. And wait to cut into it until the opening credits start rolling; your friends and family will be so impressed that the cake that's on screen is right in front of their faces.

One thing about "Bake Off" is that it isn't a show where they explain every step of the baking process. Even for the mid-episode technical challenge, where all bakers are supposed to be baking the same thing, that recipe isn't, well, complete. That's the challenge with the technical: The bakers are given an identical pared-down recipe that leaves out key things like oven temperature and baking time, so they're left to use their baking knowledge to figure it out.

You could do that for yourself if you want to cry, or prove something, but we'd reckon you're not looking to make this exactly like "Bake Off." You can find great recipes from lots of places, including here on Tasting Table, on "The Great British Bake Off" website, on social media, and even in any cookbooks you may have lying around. The "Bake Off" judges and contestants have written a fair few cookbooks between them, too.

One thing to keep in mind is that the bakers on the show are encouraged to try new spins and flavor combinations on the dish they're making, so if that lime and ginger eclair doesn't exist anywhere on the internet, you've either got to make another version or attempt to guess the ratios yourself. Just be warned that these bakers practiced their recipes for a week before making them on the show, so your end result may not be as polished as one you'd follow from a recipe. But that's the fun in the challenge — it's up to you!

Within every hour-long episode of "Bake Off," there are three challenges: the technical, the signature, and the showstopper. All three of them adhere to the theme of the week, whether it be bread week or French week. The bakers are told what the signature and showstopper challenges are the week before, and then they go home to practice them for the week and perfect their flavors and decorations. The technical, on the other hand, leaves the contestants in the dark until the last minute. Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith set the challenge for them.

The signature is what it sounds like: a signature dish related to the week's theme. For instance, if it's bread week, they might make hot cross buns, sourdough, or cinnamon rolls. The technical might be a bit trickier, and the showstopper is supposed to be just that: show-stopping. Perhaps you could rotate which one you choose to bake based on your skill level, which item sounds the most tasty, or what you have the ingredients for. Or, you could have each friend bake one of the challenges of that week so you can sample them all. It's your decision and all about what you're looking for.

Is this sounding pretty elementary to you? Well, let's get into how you can level things up, shall we? There are many ways you can take this peaceful, fun challenge and use it to try to immerse yourself in the stress of the "Bake Off" tent. First, you could put yourself on the same timer that the bakers are given to make the dish.

Next, you could have a friend black out some of the words of the recipe you're trying to make, like they do in the technical challenge (though you might end up with a horrible bake). You could also choose your most intimidating friend to pace around your kitchen and stare you down while you race against the clock to bake, in true Paul Hollywood style. Another idea is to have all your friends bake the signature and each do different flavors and style variations. Then, have other friends come in to taste test and rank the bakes blind. They can give brutal feedback to take it to the next, next level. You can even "send someone home" and crown another person Star Baker.

Just making it to the end of this challenge would be a win in our book. If you enjoy baking but are not used to doing it every week, it's a challenge to try baking new things you've never made before. That alone deserves praise! 

But if you want something a little more concrete and your friends are participating in the challenge with you, you can award the person who's made the best things the most weeks Star Baker. You could also give the person with the most Star Bakers the win, or you could give it to the person who's the most improved. Go all out, too, and get a nice cake plate (you can find really beautiful but cheap ones at the thrift store) and give it to that person as their trophy. Happy baking!