Twelve of the country's best amateur bakers take part in the second series of The Great British Bake Off, hosted by Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins. Over eight weeks their cake-baking, pastry, bread-making and patisserie skills are tested to the limit a... (more)s they are challenged to bake everything from the perfect tarte au citron to towers of macaroons, and iced fingers to family pies. All the challenges are devised by legendary cookery writer and baker Mary Berry and acclaimed master baker Paul Hollywood who are also on hand to judge and taste their efforts. This first show sees the twelve amateur bakers challenged to make 24 beautifully flavoured and decorated cupcakes in two hours and the stress of highly pressurised surroundings of the Bake Off's open plan kitchen soon shows. Next up, the technical challenge - to make a coffee and walnut Battenberg cake from one of Mary Berry's recipes that delivers drastically different results. Finally, for a place in the next round of Bake Off they have to make and bake a tiered showstopper cake. But whose cakes will have the wow factor and who will be the first to leave The Great British Bake Off?