Benoit Blin | Bake Off : The Professionals Press Pack 2026

Benoit worked at Raymond Blanc’s 2 Michelin-starred Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons for over 30 years. As Chef Pâtissier, he headed up a team of 13 pastry chefs. He was Team President of the UK team in the 2011 Pastry World Cup and has served as Chairman of the UK Pastry Club.

He achieved the title of MCA (Master of Culinary Arts) in 2005, the highest accolade in the industry, awarded only every four years to the best Pastry Chefs in the UK. Benoit also holds a French Master’s degree in pastry and was awarded Pastry Chef of the Year in 2009. He is a long-standing member of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts. His first book, Bake with Benoit Blin: Master Cakes, Pastries and Desserts Like a Professional, was published in July 2024

He has been a judge on Bake Off: The Professionals alongside Cherish Finden, for all eleven series of the show.   

Interview

We’re back for series 11. What was the standard like this year?
As always, I’d say the standard is really strong. They don’t all necessarily start at the highest level, but every team grows during the competition, and gets better as time goes on, which is great to see. 

Talk to me about the Teams and where they come from.
It’s always a real mixture, which is part of the beauty of the show. The pastry industry is vast, and full of people from different backgrounds. So we’ve got chefs who work in Michelin-starred restaurants, others have come from the great five-star London hotels, and then we have people who work in a little family-owned chocolate shop. 

There are a couple of childhood showpieces – toys and hobbies What did they come up with?
One really good one was a toy quadbike. They used painting trays as a mould to create a shape of a really realistic-looking quadbike. It was really cool. There was also a remote control car which looked really lifelike as well. It was a monster truck, and what happened with that at the end was amazing, but I can’t tell you more than that!

Did you have a favourite childhood toy?
As a kid, obviously I didn’t have a mobile phone or anything like that, so you had to use your imagination to entertain yourself. I had the usual Lego sets and things like that. I remember one thing in particular, I don’t know if you had the same thing over here. We had a wood block set, with blocks of wood of different lengths, and you would stack them up to build a house or a cabin, with windows and so on. You could build all sorts of shapes and sizes of building, and then you could use those buildings when you played with your cars or whatever toys you wanted to play with. And I had a garage which you could move cars around in, on different levels, with a petrol station and all sorts of things. And one of my favourites which is still in my mother’s loft, although I don’t think it’s working, was a Concorde plane, and I had a remote control one. In those days, remote control meant it was attached by a lead. It could make supersonic noises and the engine would light up, and the nose cone would go up and down. 

What were your hobbies as a kid?
I don’t think I had hobbies as such. I just messed about. And I was very good at it! I loved baking from a young age. I would bake for my parents on a Wednesday afternoon if the weather was crap. It would be extremely thick, slightly underbaked, coated in melted chocolate, which I had to force-feed my parents. And they would always lie to me that they enjoyed it. But the rest of the time I messed about with my friends, riding our bikes. I lived in the countryside, the world was my discovery place. 

There’s a Shakespearean showpiece. What kind of creations came out of that?
Generally Shakespeare is pretty serious, but we had some really fun interpretations. A Midsummer Night’s Dream came up, with the famous little Puck character coming into play and bringing the showpiece to life, which I really enjoyed. There was a bit of chocolate work, as you might expect, because at that stage of the competition, chocolate seems to be the safest medium to play with. But some of the others did sugar work, and created very grand, very fragile showpieces. 

Are you a fan of Shakespeare? Is his work as much a part of the school curriculum as it is in this country?
The French have got their own literary history, so I was raised with Molière and Cornet and all sorts. I’ve never been into that sort of literature in depth. I have been taught to read these kinds of things, stuff like Don Garcia of Navarre by Molière, which you’re taught when you’re young and remember for the rest of your life. But I’ve never been a great fan. As far as Shakespeare is concerned, I live not too far from Stratford-Upon-Avon, so I went and visited there. Do I like Shakespeare or not like Shakespeare? That is the question! But I really enjoyed what we did with it on the show, there were some great creations. But I would struggle to read Shakespeare, because it’s quite old English, and I have limited understanding of it. 

Tell me about the circus of horrors piñata. I gather you had fun smashing them!
I felt really guilty about it! Asking our chefs to spend hours and hours creating different things, investing a lot of effort creating and developing their ideas, I felt really conflicted. But, like a lot of guilty pleasures, it was really fun. And, as a piñata goes, there’s nothing you can do other than smash it to pieces. And it worked. I think it’ll potentially be one of the highlights of the series. 

There’s a summer holidays showpiece. Is there a particular holiday that you would memorialise in pastry?
When I was young, we could go to the mountains, we could go to the beach, we could go camping. I spent quite a lot of holidays with my aunties and my cousins. They were all brilliant, I could choose any of them. 

Were there any challenges that the chefs particularly struggled with this year?
Everybody’s going to have a struggle at some point in the competition. It’s not necessarily the same one for all of them. But the Secret Challenge is always difficult, especially when you’re splitting the team up – but I can’t say much more than that! The task may not sound that complicated, but when you are put on the spot, with not much information in front of you to create something, it can be tricky. 

The final had a masquerade ball theme. It featured a very long challenge, didn’t it?
The longest we’ve ever done on the show. I think it was about 12 hours in total. They were given 12 hours to create a banquet-size table, displayed with showpieces made out of chocolate and sugar work. Go big or go home – and it was time to go home anyway, so we went big.

What happens to all of the creations after judging? Does everyone dive in with a spoon, or take food home, or does it go somewhere else?
Alors, I’ve got to reassure everybody here, there is nothing going to waste. If anything, Cherish and I are sometimes fighting a little bit, stopping the crew from coming in too soon to eat the creations from our chefs. We often want to go back to the pastries and treats which have been made, to make sure we have made the right decision. But before you know it, you turn your back and you’ve got four camera crews eating the pastry, and you have to remind them that the judging isn’t completely finished. So everybody enjoys a lovely treat at the end of the challenge, which is fully deserved, because it’s a long day of work for everybody.

Do the teams go and try each other’s creations?
Absolutely! They are very keen to do that. It’s something that perhaps didn’t happen as much ten years ago, but now, definitely. They talk to each other, and find out how it went, which is really nice, and they try each other’s desserts. 

Are you conscious of sustainability while making the show?
We try to be. Ultimately, nobody’s perfect, but that shouldn’t stop you from working hard towards it. So we control the amount of ingredients we use on the show. We say “With these quantities, you have to create this…” And it’s important to do things like source your ingredients in the best possible way, so that’s something we look into with the chefs.

How important is it for each team to have a definite leader?
With teamwork, if you want efficiency, having a leader helps you to make the right decision in a difficult moment. That’s one of the advantages of having a leader. And a good leader is there to sort things on a day when things aren’t going too well. So a strong leader is really important. 

Last year saw the 30th anniversary of you joining Le Manoir. Did you mark the occasion with a celebration? 
Yes, it was my 30th year at Le Manoir and, ultimately, my last year at Le Manoir. It’s been a  fantastic experience for me. It’s the place where I’ve spent most of my career. It’s been my home for a long, long time. And since then, I’ve had the opportunity to travel the world a little bit. I went to South Africa, and went on safari in some of the beautiful places there. It was a dream come true for me. As a child, I always wanted to go on safari. It’s like being on a movie set. So that was my way of celebrating my last year at Le Manoir. 

So what’s happening next for you?
Le Manoir is closing its doors, because there is a massive refurbishment project on the go, it’s going to be closed for 18 months to two years, by which stage a new team will take over the place. Raymond Blanc will step down to a role of lifetime ambassador. And for me, the world of consultancy is what I’m focussing on, and other bits and bobs. But I’ve got to a place in my life where I can look at different options, and look at doing my job in a different way. I don’t necessarily want to go back to the nine-to-five aspect of the job. I have the possibility of exploring other aspects of the job. Maybe writing another book or something? I did one three years ago, and I enjoyed the process. I don’t know, I need to think about it. At the moment it’s still pretty new, and I’m enjoying slowing down a little bit. 

Last year, you also created a patisserie collection inspired by the Netflix show Emily in Paris. Was that as much fun as it sounds?
It was. It was really fun! It was hard work as well, because ultimately the style of pastry was very design-like. It would need to look like a little handbag, or something like that. It was a really interesting challenge, to create a mood board with colours and dresses and flavours, and come up with something that you can eat, was very interesting.

Speaking of Netflix, you almost share a name with the great detective, Benoit Blanc. Have you seen the Knives Out films?
Yes, I have. My favourite one is the first one. Perhaps the writer of the movie came to Le Manoir and combined a couple of names together [Benoit Blin and Raymond Blanc] to create a character! 

I understand you and Liam watched a lot of horror films together in your lunch breaks. 
Yeah, it’s something we started to do. Our Green Room has been set up with all the channels this year, and when the weather was really bad, and we were left with a couple of hours for lunch breaks, we would close the curtains and put on a horror movie to see if we could frighten ourselves. Quite often we would fall asleep. So we’d see the beginning but quite often not the end, so we’d have to watch it again. 

You also watched a lot of the Six Nations together. I bet you weren’t falling asleep during that!
Definitely not! But, believe it or not, I missed the most important match of all – the last one, against England. We were in the restaurant, celebrating our last evening together. But I think it was better not watching it, because I would have had a heart attack. I was delighted with the result. But I was stressed, because some of my dear colleagues on the team were taking great pleasure in showing me the scores when England were ahead. 

How do you relax, when you’re not working?
I like cooking. You might think I do that for a living, but I love it. I try to cook things that I’m not used to. I’ve discovered a passion for pizza-making at the moment. Making bread at home is a real challenge as well – things like trying to make the perfect sourdough in your own kitchen is a real challenge, and I like that. 

What are your savoury cooking skills like? Could you cut it as a savoury chef?
I could have when I was young – that’s what I wanted to do to begin with. I can cook, but doing that day-in, day-out as a restaurant chef is a different world. Your skillset needs to be developed. You have to be so efficient in your work to make it commercially viable, and I’m not there. I’m a good cook at home, I enjoy cooking, but in the comfort of my kitchen. In a professional kitchen, definitely not. 

As part of your work over the years, did you go out to other restaurants to check out what the competition was up to?
Oh yes! Let’s not forget, it’s an expensive game. The bills are expensive at times. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience lots of wonderful places. I even got to go to Nice, to a Michelin three-starred restaurant, and got to spend a couple of days in the kitchen with a chef that Raymond Blanc knew. And we went out to other places, to discover what the different techniques and foods of the region. That’s the sort of thing you need to do in this industry to continue being relevant and doing well. 

Do you have a favourite restaurant?
As you go through life, your favourite restaurant changes. I used to love going out to very expensive, Michelin-starred restaurants, but as I’m getting older, I like going to places with friends and family where you can have a chat and relax. So I like going out to brasseries and restaurant-style cafes – a less high-handed restaurant with good, solid food. There are many out there, I feel it would be unfair just to pick one out.

Do you ever have a store-bought dessert?
Only if I’m in France!

What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into the pastry industry?
This is the advice I gave to my chefs last year, before we left Le Manoir. It sums up what the job is about. I saw a video online, and it was a professor explaining how frustrating the learning process is. Often people give up learning because they find it so frustrating. But when you find yourself frustrated at work, or when learning a new skill, you should understand that that frustration is totally legitimate. Learning is frustrating, but keep being curious, and go at it. Frustration is something you can move about, but the result is always worth waiting for.