Cancer survivor Chris Geiger has become the second Great British Bake Off contestant to leave the tent, after he failed to play a winning hand with his biscuit board game.
The sailing enthusiast, 50, departed the show after he came last in a fortune cookie technical challenge and produced a showstopper game described by judge Paul Hollwood as “rough and ready”.
Afterwards he said: “It has been lovely to receive so many messages from cancer patients, I have received congratulations from people that have either been through treatment, or currently having treatment.
“The letters are so moving, when we read them my wife and I are sobbing away like a couple of babies. Something like that makes a whole sense of the competition, big time.
“Because of my illness, we are an incredibly close family. I hope from being on the show, it raises awareness that cancer can be beaten and inspires anyone who is having treatment, that will be enough for me.
“I hope patients will follow their goals in life, like I am trying to do. I have ticked another ambition off my list by getting on Bake Off and I want to thank Love Productions for the amazing opportunity.”
The second episode of the first series to air on Channel 4 since the programme departed the BBC saw the bakers tasked with whipping up 24 sandwich biscuits, before a technical challenge of two different kinds of fortune cookie.
Geiger’s attempt was so unsuccessful judge Prue Leith spat it out, saying: “Raw batter’s not that much fun.”
The showstopper challenge propelled Steven Carter-Bailey to his second week as star baker as the judges were dazzled by his coffee gingerbread chess set with 100 biscuit pieces.
Hollywood hailed it as “Exceptional, sublime, very delicate,” while Leith called it “a little masterpiece.”
Geiger’s rum and ginger sailing-themed game, which substituted a spinning compass for dice, failed to impress, although judges were impressed by the rotating equipment.
Sophie Faldo’s chocolate and lemon and bergamot snakes and ladder game was a hit as was James Hillery’s spiced orange, chocolate and ginger game of Coppitt.
Liam Charles’ chocolate orange classroom games compendium came under fire for lacking in decoration but made up for it with delicious biscuits while Stacey Hart, who baked a game of her own invention based on getting her sons to school, impressed with her design but failed with her “dry as a bone” biscuits.
The Great British Bake Off continues on Channel 4 at 8pm on Tuesdays.
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