Rotherham support worker joins this year’s Great British Bake Off

Support worker Dan (32) has been announced as one of the 13 contestants in this year’s Channel 4 baking competition — which returns to our screens next week.

Self-taught baker Dan admits he has been trying to get on TV’s biggest baking show for years and it was “strange and surreal” to finally achieve his dream.

Dan, who was born in Worksop and raised in Rotherham, has fond memories of his mum showing him how to bake a Victoria sponge as a child and his army chef dad coming to school to teach how to plait and bake bread.

He got serious about baking aged 21 in a bid to impress his girlfriend Laura, who is now his wife, with a themed birthday cake.

His favourite part of the baking process is decoration and he loves producing awe-inspiring bakes — he even made his own wedding cake. The kitchen creation he is most proud of making is a towering croquembouche.

Speaking about signing up for Bake Off Dan said: “I have been trying for a few years now, so finally I am here. It’s absolutely crazy, really amazing, I was so adamant to get on, it’s very hard to describe the feelings, all strange and surreal.

“And then when you are in the tent it all feels normal pretty quickly.”

When asked what the show is like to be on, he said: “The first time I saw the white peaks of the tent it gave me butterflies, but also you feel so excited at the same time.”

Dan, who has three dogs, said his colleagues will be shocked to see him in the Bake Off tent as they have “no idea”.

Dan is up against 12 other hopefuls (pictured below), including an online project manager from Leeds, a fashion designer from Halifax and a HGV driver from Essex.

The baking contest returns to Channel 4 on Tuesday, August 27 at 8pm — the third series since it moved from BBC One.

Presenters Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig will be spurring Dan and his fellow bakers on while judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith inspect the bakes.

Last year, amateur baker Rahul Mandal was crowned the winner and won the nation’s hearts with his dry wit and self-deprecating nature.

Rahul only started baking cakes for colleagues at Catcliffe’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in 2015 and won the Rotherham Show baking competition a year before his TV success.