Great British Bakeoff: We All Know The Winner But Here's Something We Didn't See Coming
1 of 6GALLERY: Delicious New Desserts From M&S
2 of 61. BELGIAN CHOCOLATE JAFFA SPHERES
Dark chocolate mousse with an orange marmalade centre dipped in dark belgian chocolate.
3 of 62. PASSION FRUIT AND RASPBERRY VELVET
A layered raspberry compote encased in a white chocolate and passionfruit mousse.
4 of 63. APPLE TARTE TATIN
Caramelised Cox's Apples baked with fresh puff pastry and buttery caramel.
5 of 64. BELGIAN WHITE CHOCOLATE AND PASSION FRUIT MOUSSE
White chocolate mousse on a sponge base filled with passion fruit sauce.
6 of 65. TAHITIAN VANILLA CHEESECAKE
Tahitian vanilla cheesecake on an oatmeal biscuit base.
Well, the final of Great British Bake-Off was both gripping and emotional! Nancy Birtwhistle, a home baking granny from North Lincolnshire, became the fifth person to take home the glass cake stand and a record 13.3 million of us tuned in to watch beating last year's X Factor.
Although GBBO has, over the years, encouraged people in their thousands to go into the kitchen and give baking a whirl, this series we've noticed that the recipes have become very complicated. Recipes such as baklava and schichtorte are not quite the things that your average homebaker would attempt to make. And it's supermarkets like Marks & Spencer that are benefitting from this, with stores reporting an upturn on cake and dessert sales as more people are baking less, and buying more to eat while they watch. Indeed after this week's GBBO final M&S were on track to sell over half a million desserts. Why sweat over challenging french pastry Kouign-amann (featured on Episode 7)** **when you can buy one instead?
[BBC: Above winner Nancy amazed the judges with her Moulin Rouge windmill cake]
Just in time for this cake rush, Marks & Spencers have launched a new dessert range, its largest ever with 23 new products and their first-ever patisserie style range on the high street - the brainchild of ex-head pastry chef at the Mandarin Oriental, who used his chef skills to create a range of desserts normally only found in top restaurants. Scroll the gallery above for our favourites.
Follow Vic on Twitter @VicGrier