Stamford’s Matty Edgell on The Great British Bake-off
This month Matty Edgell launches his baking academy, with a goal to empower people to get into the kitchen and bake… a maximum of six people at a time will benefit from the guidance and charisma of last year’s Great British Bakeoff winner, so there’s nobody better to help ensure you create perfect pastry and creative cakes!
Here’s the story of somebody who has managed to have their cake… and eat it. “I had two subject that I really enjoyed at school,” says Matty Edgell. “One was food technology and one was sport. Sport was the bigger passion so it was that I pursued.”
Happily, Matty didn’t have to choose. He became a PE teacher and continued happily baking at home, until his wife Lara decided that the world needed to know just how good Matty’s bakes are and took some pretty drastic action to ensure everyone knew.
“I didn’t actually apply for Bake Off. I didn’t know the application had gone in,” he says. “Lara applied on my behalf. She wanted to apply the previous year and was determined not to miss the chance this time around. All of a sudden she was taking pictures of me baking, which seemed odd. She became less and less discreet about it and eventually she ended up posing me for pictures and becoming cagey about where the photos were going to end up.”
Eventually to Matty’s shock Lara confessed that she had entered him for the TV series, which is probably the best thing that could have happened since Matty was far more modest about his talents than Lara was.
“I confident in my ability to produce something which tastes good and has a good texture… my concerns were producing bakes that looked good enough, and being able to turn my hand to all of the different baking skills that the programme requires.”
“The application process, too, is very long which leaves you in doubt as to whether you’ll be selected. There’s a massive questionnaire, followed by a phone interview and a Zoom call with a couple of rehearsals from home in which I had to bake a gingerbread house and a loaf of bread. After that there’s the small matter of a live audition and a psychiatric test to make sure you’re not going be adversely affected by the pressure.”
The application went in about September or October and I was told definitively that I was on in March, a couple of months before filming started.”
“At every singe stage, too, there’s a new non-disclosure agreement. My wife and our parents knew, but everyone else was kept in the dark. It confused our friends and neighbours Gemma and Shelton greatly.”
“The programme works over 10 weeks, more or less consecutively.
You have to be there contractually on the Friday evening, and on the Saturday you’re up bright and early to film the signature and technical bakes. Then the showstopper is filmed on the Sunday.”
“Throughout the week, you’re practising each bake, often getting something out of the oven at ten at night. Our friends were confused about why I kept popping a glut of cakes to them late at night.”
“Most of the filming takes place during weekends but I did need to odd day off work, which presented a bit of a problem. I made an appointment with HR and wondered how I’d approach the subject. Fortunately they were really amenable!”
“Still, for 10 weeks it does really consume your life. Your mind never stops and you’re still working and carrying on with normal life but also trying to fit in practising four-hour bakes midweek.”
“The filming is the fun part but there’s an awful lot of practice, and you genuinely don’t know if you’re back the following week until your name is called on Sunday evening, exactly as it appears on the show. It consumed my life, but also Lara’s life too. She was the chief taster and a sounding board. By the end of the series she knew so much about baking and she had the pressure too… although it was her idea in the first place!”
“Mostly you’re using the equipment and ingredients that are in the tent already, but you are allowed to bring in additional equipment. I took my favourite cake spatulas and piping bag because I was used to them, but part of the difficulty is that, as every baker knows, every oven is slightly different, so when you’re using an unfamiliar oven there’s a point of difference and an element of insecurity as a result.”
“What you don’t see is how many people there are in the tent. The magic of television makes it look as though there are just the contestant and presenters working away, especially when they film the wide shots.”
“In reality, there can be up to 50 people either involved in recording or working as runners, taking away or bringing new bakeware to the competitors. On other occasions though it does go very quiet and there’s a hushed sense of concentration among everyone.”
“Each week there are fewer benches and fewer people in the tent, which definitely feels weird. Ostensibly it’s a competition but in reality, you really do bond with each other as there’s a shared understanding of the pressure and the knowledge that someone is going home that weekend. I imagine going out on the first week is disappointing but as the weeks go on the stakes get higher and higher.”
“You don’t want anyone to have a bad week, because you come to care about your fellow bakers. But you still want your week to be better and stay in the process. It’s surreal watching each other on TV and we’ve a shared What’s App group so we could chat as the series was being shown.”
“The game plan, really was not to be the best, it was just to avoid being the worst, and I think there’s something to be said for keeping the degree of pressure you experience in check just like if you were taking a penalty in the World Cup. That’s probably where there’s a parallel between sports psychology and Bake-Off psychology!”
“I can’t even describe the feeling of being in the final and then being told I was the series winner. Complete shock doesn’t even come close. There are huge celebrations and good wishes from all of the bakers, and it feels really incredible… but then, still under the obligation not to disclose anything to the outside world, you return home and have to keep It a complete secret.”
“The very next day, Monday, I was back teaching a cricket match and life just went back to normal, continuing like that until the Tuesday before the first episode airs, when, all of a sudden, the secret is revealed and life goes a bit crazy.”
“I’ve never been prolific on social media and I don’t even have a personal Instagram account but once you’ve won the series, you also recognise that there’s an opportunity and you ought to capitalise on it. I wasn’t prepared for the seeing myself in TV guides and newspapers, but if anything will keep you grounded it’s a school full of teenagers.”
“I’m lucky I have a good rapport with them and I have enjoyed teaching but I’m also conscious that I need to be available to capitalise on any opportunities that he series presents.”
“I stopped teaching at the end of the last academic year and I’ve been involved in a number of social media promotions and publishing work. I’d love to work with Lara in some way to, perhaps setting up a business.”
“Above all, I don’t want to look back 20 years in the future and regret not making a leap of faith, right now. That’s one lesson I’ve been able to impart to my students, but there’s another too, one that’s quite prescient in the age of social media.”
“As part of the process the producers asked outright if there were any skeletons in my closet and at the time it seemed quite a sinister thing to ask, but today bad publicity can be a distraction from a programme about people who enjoy baking.”
“When you say or do something unwise and it goes online, it’s there forever and it can come back to ruin future opportunities that you don’t even know exist yet, especially as a young person. I’m happy to have been able to pass that advice on too.”
“Bake Off has been an incredible experience, very positive and hopefully one that’ll present more opportunities in the future. Baking is an enjoyable thing to do and the more I can help people to discover or rediscover the joy of it in the future the better!”
See our full story on Matty as well as our Food & Drink pages online now, our February edition can be found at https://issuu.com/pridemagazines/docs/stamford_pride_february_2025
Matty Edgell has launched his Matty Baking Academy masterclasses with his current courses including Perfect Pastry and All Things Chocolate. Six people maximum, £59/person, see www.mattyedgell.com.