Rahul goes from Rotherham Show champ to Great British Bake off winner

Viewers saw him last night become the latest top baker in Channel 4’s amateur cooking competition beating Kim Joy and Ruby.

Fans called him “inspiring” and even Harry Potter author JK Rowling tweeted about him after previously saying he should be Prime Minister.

Rahul only started baking cakes for colleagues at Catcliffe’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) two years ago and won the Rotherham Show baking competition in 2017.

The normally chatty 30-year-old said he was speechless after being crowned the winner.

He added: “This is probably the first time that I have got something like this, like a trophy. I talk so much, most of the time, and I just don’t know what to say now. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry, I just feel I need to talk with my mum.”

Rahul had a rocky final challenge after a glass jar shattered in the cooking tent due to the hot weather, sending glass all over his workbench.

He had to begin his showstopper bake again and judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith allowed him to have the extra 15 minutes which he lost due to the clear up.

Despite the drama, Rahul regained his composure to create a showstopper which featured an edible rock garden with almost 200 different components.

Cheering him on at the grand final were his close friends David and Liz, who are like his “family” and “took him under their wing from India eight years ago”. 

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when David said: “I think my life would be a lot poorer if I hadn’t met Rahul.”

Reacting to the win Scott Bryan on Twitter said: “Rahul shows that even if YOU don’t think you are great, you can still very much be. And that how you see yourself is not how others see you.”

Dr Elizabeth Rickett said: “I cannot express the ways I love Rahul — this show is everything I love about the UK and being British in all its diversity.”

Jess said: “Rahul is so inspiring to me. To lack so much confidence in yourself and consistently pick yourself back up and continue to fight. I hope to progress as much as he has done. Well done Rahul, and thank you.”

Last night, JK Rowling retweeted a message from fellow author Sathnam Sanghera, famous for The Boy With The Top Knot, which read: “An Indian engineering researcher living in Sheffield with an English couple and winning a British baking show by making mango-filed doughnuts. Nice to be reminded that despite our stupid politics, this is Britain in 2018.”

When he’s not cooking up a storm Rahul is a research associate specialising in light-based measurement of engineered components or can be found in the gym at Rotherham Leisure Centre.

Born in India, Rahul came to the UK in 2010 on a scholarship to study for his PhD in optical metrology at Loughborough University. He joined the Nuclear AMRC in 2015, to develop innovative automated techniques for inspecting components for any contamination or flaw.

Rahul said his job was “all about measuring things with light” and described his baking style as ‘east-meets-west’.