Great British Bake Off: The Yorkshire contestants who won GBBO - where are they now?

The Great British Bake Off captured the hearts of bakers around the nation since it aired its first season in 2010.

Over the last 10 years, GBBO has amassed between 2.77 and 13.85 million viewers and many of its winners have gone on to have flourishing careers.

Many of those talented enough to take the Bake Off crown had links to Yorkshire.

Here’s what the GBBO winners from God’s Own County are up to now.

Edward ‘Edd’ Kimber - Series one winner

In 2010, Edd Kimber, from Bradford, won the first series of the show. He was working as a debt collector for a bank at the time.

He grew up in a household where baking was a regular hobby. Indeed, he recalled his first memory of baking was standing on a stool helping his mother make mince pies in the kitchen.

After blowing the judges away and becoming the first baker to win the show, he quit his corporate job and produced multiple cookbooks: Say It With Cake, The Boy Who Bakes, Patisserie Made Simple and One Tin Bakes.

Kimber was also a regular baker on The Alan Titchmarsh Show and now lives with his boyfriend in Highbury, North London.

He writes for a number of publications including BBC Good Food, Delicious, and Waitrose Kitchen and has also made regular appearances on Sunday Brunch.

His blog theboywhobakes.co.uk has been named one of the best blogs by Woman and Home Magazine and as one of the best baking blogs by Channel 4.

Nancy Birtwhistle - Series five winner

The seasoned baker was born and raised in Hull, and she said on her website her fondest memories were cooking alongside her mother, especially at Christmas.

Birtwhistle was a practice manager at a GP surgery before she appeared on the show.

She was a huge fan of The Great British Bake Off and actually applied to be on the show for its fourth series, but surprisingly, was unsuccessful. However, she didn’t let that stop her from applying again a year later. She left the tent on a high note in 2014 when she won the series.

Birtwhistle has since demonstrated at large food shows and has been invited to talk and teach students of all ages. She has had a variety of opportunities from judging to writing to acting. She has also been a keynote speaker at events.

The baker is a regular contributor to national newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and lives in Barton-upon-Humber with her husband.

Birtwhistle has written the books, Clean & Green: 101 Hints and Tips for a More Eco-Friendly Home in 2021.

Nadiya Hussain - Series six winner

Nadiya Hussain won the series in 2015 - the most popular series with nearly 14 million viewers that year.

The TV chef, author and television presenter was living in Leeds at the time she was on the show.

Since her rise to fame, she has hosted the award-winning BBC documentary The Chronicles of Nadiya, where she travelled back to her hometown in Bangladesh to trace her culinary roots.

She was awarded the Presenter Award in the Women in Film and Television (UK) awards for the documentary.

Hussain has also won awards for her TV cookery series Nadiya’s British Food Adventure; she won the Factual Entertainment award at the Royal Television Society Awards and the Best Programme as well as Personality of the Year awards at the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards.

Hussain is a regular star on The One Show, a guest panelist on Loose Women, has co-presented The Big Family Cooking Showdown and is a columnist for The Times Magazine.

In 2016 she was commissioned by Buckingham Palace to bake Queen Elizabeth II’s cake for her 90th birthday. She chose to bake an orange drizzle cake with orange curd and buttercream.

Rahul Mandal - Series nine winner

Fan favourite Mandal was born in Howrah, India, and works as an engineering researcher at University of Sheffield’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

He won the ninth series of The Great British Bake Off in 2018, which was viewed by 10 million people.

Mandal obtained his Bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering from the West Bengal University of Technology and his masters degree in optics and optoelelectronics from the University of Calcutta.

He has since been signed as a columnist for The Times Magazine and sometimes cooks on This Morning.

David Atherton - Series ten winner

David Atherton was born in Whitby, North Yorkshire, and lived in a village in Scarborough until he was 18 years old.

He won the tenth series of the show in 2019 and has come from a family of regular bakers, who make everything from bread to cake.

He has worked in many different countries including Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea and Nigeria.

Atherton was encouraged by his friends at his pottery class to apply for The Great British Bake Off.

He has since started writing a cookery column for The Guardian on food for fitness, and his children’s book My First Cookbook was published by Walker books in August 2020.

He currently lives in South London with his partner and he enjoys cycling, making ceramics and cooking food in his spare time.