Harry Hill to host Channel 4’s Junior Bake Off
David Farnor | On 11, Jun 2019
Comedian, author and a man who likes a significant shirt collar, Harry Hill, will host Channel 4’s new Junior Bake Off.
The GBBO spin-off series will see 40 of the country’s best junior bakers, aged 9 – 15, enter the Bake Off tent where their cake-making, biscuit baking, and bread and pastry making skills will be tested to the limit. In each of the ten heats, the junior bakers face two challenges – the Technical Bake and the Showstopper – with only four making it through to the grand final.
No stranger to the iconic white tent himself, Harry appeared in The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer in 2018 showcasing his own baking skills with his bald lucky cupcakes and a 3D biscuit scene representing the best day of his life entitled “The day I went on holiday with Camilla Parker Bowles”.
Hill says: “I’m very excited to be going back in the tent and breathing the cake fumes – I know a certain Duchess will be looking on, brimming with pride!”
Joining Harry, Prue Leith will swap the grown ups tent to judge the budding junior bakers, alongside Bake Off alumni Liam Charles.
Leith has spent her career campaigning for the importance of children being taught about food, where it comes from and how to cook. She says: “Almost all cooks and bakers start with brownies or pizza, finding it fun, creative and satisfying. So the more we can do to widen the nation’s interest in good food the better. I’m really thrilled to be asked to judge Junior Bake Off.”
Fresh from hosting his second season of Bake Off: The Professionals, Liam will take on judging responsibilities for the first time. Two years ago it was Liam’s bakes being judged in the tent, now he’ll get to share everything he learned during that experience to encourage the next generation of bakers.
Liam says: “From competing to hosting and now judging, it’s insane. It’s going to be great to see what the junior bakers come up with because this is around the age I started. I’m well chuffed to be sharing the experience with Prue and Harry, it’s gonna be wicked, ROLL ON THE JUNIORS!!”
The 15-part series made by Love Productions, creators and producers of The Great British Bake Off, will film in the summer and broadcast on Channel 4 later this year.