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Baking UX into ‘The Great British Bake Off’
What do user experience, my mum and ‘The Great British Bake Off’ all have in common? Read on and you shall find out…

On the phone to my mum the other day, I mentioned I had a “zingy citrus Madeira cake” in the oven. She was delighted, not just because she adores baking, but also because the recipe is one of her own. You can get your hands on the recipe here. The cake is of particular significance for another, even greater reason too: in 2015, it featured on the sixth season of The Great British Bake Off. That’s right, my mum (Marie Campbell, by the way) was a GBBO contestant! One of my better claims to fame, I have to say.
Their exacting standards met, judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry called the zingy citrus Madeira cake, respectively, “perfect” and “lovely.” And when mum opened her own wee cake shop afterwards, she said, chuckling through the pun, that it “sold like hotcakes.”
Along with two other great bakes in the first episode of the season, including a sumptuous Black Forest gateau, that zingy citrust Madeira cake earned mum the much-coveted honour of Star Baker. Sadly, she didn’t make it beyond episode 2, and it was Nadiya Hussain who eventually took the win.