Radlett contestant Stacey Hart has been booted off the Great British Bake Off after making it through to the semi-finals.
Mum-of-three Stacey, 42, was eliminated from the competition in Tuesday night’s episode on Channel 4. In the episode, she baked 24 Choux buns with two flavours, a Les Miserables-themed cake and a pink flamingo meringue centrepiece.
She said: “It was a mixture of emotions for me. I felt I had done so well to get so close to the final, but also sort of relieved that I would be leaving the tension of the competition. At the beginning of the episode I said that if this is the end of the road for me, then I am leaving happy.
“For me it was the most unbelievable experience of my life to get to the semi finals of The Great British Bake Off. I couldn’t believe it, and to get Star Baker in that week and a Hollywood Handshake, a double whammy!
“The best moment out of the whole experience for me was to challenge myself to do something scary and out of my comfort zone, and the most important thing to me was that I had tried so hard to get on the show.”
Stacey, who lives with her husband James and three young sons, has fond childhood memories of helping her grandmother make bread and butter pudding, and started to take baking seriously when she was at university. She likes to incorporate her Jewish heritage into her baking by serving traditional homemade Challah.
She said: “I am a better baker now than I was before, and I learned that it’s good to push boundaries, and also that it’s not good to wear jeans in 41 degrees heat in a very hot tent. I also found a whole new bunch of friends. Within the first week we were all like family and we had such a laugh together, we shared so many highs and lows, and all the bakers are such lovely people.
“Going back to being a full time mum to three young boys was actually quite nice. It was a relief not to be baking up against the clock, and I really quickly got back to baking what I wanted to bake and when I wanted to. I thought at the end of my time in the tent I wouldn’t bake for a while, but I did the very next day and I haven’t stopped since.”
Presenter Prue Leith said: “I think Stacey should be really, really proud of what she has achieved. She will be disappointed today, but the truth is she has done something remarkable.”
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