Maxy Maligisa crowned winner of The Great New Year Bake Off 2024

Maxy Maligisa has been crowned the winner of The Great New Year Bake Off after returning to the tent for a festive special.

Four bakers from previous series returned to the show to see in 2024: Northern Irish star Mark Lutton from the 2020 series, German baker Jurgen Krauss who narrowly missed out on the final from series 12, former midwife Maggie Richardson from 2021 and Maxy Maligisa from series 13.

“This is definitely an amazing ending to my Bake Off story,” Maligisa said after being crowned.

“I came in here and I didn’t think I was going to win and I was so nervous about all of my bakes.”

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Judge Paul Hollywood, who was recently made an MBE, said: “Maxy does appear to lack confidence but I hope this helps because she really did hit it out of the park.”

The one-off special saw the quartet first challenged to make 12 religieuse – choux buns that look like nuns.

Krauss’s chimney sweep-shaped buns filled with rum and kirsch, complete with top hats, were praised by Hollywood for their “beautiful flavours, really alcoholic”, but he failed to get a good rise after he forgot to turn the oven on.

Maligisa’s nativity scene religieuse were hailed for their good flavour but she did not get to finish her decoration in the allotted time, while Lutton’s chocolate orange choux buns were praised by judge Dame Prue Leith as “so neat and jolly, absolutely delicious”.

However, it was a disaster forRichardson, whose chestnut and cranberry nuns with piped collars and sparkles failed to rise after her pastry split, with Dame Prue saying: “It doesn’t even taste nice.”

For the technical challenge, the bakers were tasked with preparing a galette des rois but Krauss came last with his “heavy” offering.

Richardson came third and Lutton second, with Maligisa triumphing for her bake, praised by Hollywood for “good height, good colour. Spot on”.

After two failures in a row, Krauss remarked he is “not a baking god, just another human being baking”.

The final showstopper challenge was to create a new year-inspired smash cake – a cake encased in a smashable chocolate shell.

Richardson’s run of bad luck continued when her chocolate, orange and chilli cake failed to impress after her dome and collar broke and Hollywood branded it “very dry”.

Lutton’s boozy snowman tropical rum and ginger sponge cake was praised as delicious but Hollywood said his icing did not have enough flavour.

Meanwhile, Maligisa dazzled with her lemon cake with mango and passion fruit coulis decorated with a phoenix, which was praised by Dame Prue as “very very clever, I can’t fault it”.

But it was Krauss’s cake that was hailed by Dame Prue as “the star bake of the week”.

His Mount Fuji-inspired chocolate cake with matcha biscuits was described by Hollywood as “beautiful, nice and light. This is vintage Jurgen coming back”.