This week’s episode of the Great British Bake Off has been the most controversial one to date.
The drama started last night with what social media is calling “bingate”, when contestant Diane Beard was accused of “sabotage” when she took fellow baker Iain Watter’s Baked Alaska out of the freezer.
In the final showstopper challenge of episode four, each contestant had to make an ice cream dessert, but as the temperatures in the tent were soaring, contestants battled for freezer space.
Iain’s dessert melted, and in frustration he threw it in the bin and stormed out of the baking tent.
When called to present his desert, Iain presented the bin, and the judges booted him out of the competition.
The audience did not take kindly to this, raging on twitter so much that judge Paul Hollywood and host Sue Perkins were forced to wade in on the debate.
Paul dismissed calls that Iain should have stayed in, posting:
“At the end of the day Mary & I need something to judge, it’s not about melted ice cream but about what’s presented to US… #bingate.”
Sue Perkins tried to clear the air saying that Diana wasn’t responsible for the ice cream melting:
“Iain’s Alaska was out of the freezer for 40 secs. That’s it. No sabotage. 40 secs of normal temp would NOT be enough to reduce it to liquid.”
The plot thickens however as the BBC has just revealed that Diana will not be appearing in future episodes of the show.
However, this is not because of audience backlash. These episodes of the Great British Bake Off were filmed in the spring of this year, with the winner decided long before the first episode even airs.
A spokesperson for the BBC announced that just before the taping of the fifth episode, Diane fell ill and decided to withdraw from the competition.
“The night before episode five, Diana made a decision not to come back. This is not connected in any way to what happened in episode four.” The BBC stated.
Diane hasn’t said anything about her departure, despite giving a tearful interview today claiming she’d been “stitched up” by the programme editors.
Iain himself doesn’t blame Diane for the baking disaster, tweeting there was “no hard feelings” - blaming himself for the “bincident”.
