Great British Bake Off 2020 champ Peter Sawkins reveals how he kept his win a secret

He was crowned the winner of the 2020 series of Great British Bake Off in November.

And Peter Sawkins has revealed the challenge of keeping his win a secret, after filming wrapped months before the finale of the Channel 4 show actually aired.

Making an appearance on Wednesday’s Lorraine, Peter, who is Bake Off’s youngest ever winner at 20, admitted he relished teasing his flatmates as to his fate in the competition. 

Peter is an accounting and finance student at the University of Edinburgh and lives with three housemates in the city.

He explained to Lorraine that as per the rules of the show he had to keep his win secret until the final aired in November, after shooting the series over the summer. 

‘I kept it schtum I kept it quiet, I think two of my flatmates, we decided to keep it a secret from them, so it was quite fun torturing them and watching them cower on the sofa seeing if I’m going to stay in or get kicked out,’ he laughed.

And as for the big final, there was plenty of celebrations when his pals eventually discovered he had won.

‘I watched it with them it was just a huge celebration, they didn’t know right until the end, it was just big cheers up in the flats I think we disturbed the flats above and below us,’ he said. 

Peter has also made friends for life in his GBBO co-stars, revealing the group, who lived together in a covid-secure bubble during filming, still speak all the time. 

‘We’ve got the baking bubble Whatsapp group, we’re staying in touch all the contestants .’

‘We had a Zoom last week it is really nice to keep up with each other, we just became such great friends while we were there it was so nice to stay in touch with these friends we’ve got.’

Peter was also asked by Lorraine about his technique of ‘listening’ to his cakes while on the show.  

‘You’ve got to use all your senses when you’re in the kitchen,’ he explained. ‘It was a technique I picked up from series three of the show, you can tell if it’s the moist the cake if you listen to it.’

As for his post-GBBO plans, Peter says his concentrating on his degree, which is continuing online during the pandemic, and hoping for more success with his baking in the future.  

‘I’m just seeing what comes of it, I’m trying to do as much of this as I can while keeping up my studies at the same time, and I’m doing things like Lorraine!’ he gushed. 

The Great British Bake Off 2020 finale garnered the show’s largest ever audience since its move from BBC to Channel 4 in 2017. 

The official Twitter account for the show shared details of the numbers on the big night, including that peak viewing numbers were 10.4million, an average of 9.2million people tuned in and 63.5% of the share was young viewers.