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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Jasmine Allday

Great British Bake Off air 'controversial scenes' as Matt Lucas helped by Paul Hollywood

The Great British Bake Off aired some 'controversial' scenes tonight as Paul Hollywood helped out Matt Lucas.

The Channel 4 show returned to screens tonight for a celebrity special with Annie Mac, Ed Gamble and Example, where Matt had to step in to bake as one of the other stars had to pull out last minute.

However, just minutes in, the other bakers were surprised to find Matt receiving a helping hand from Paul as he tried his hand at making Arsenal-themed biscuits as part of the show's first challenge.

He had only found out minutes before that he'd be stepping in as a baker rather than a presenter.

Matt received a Hollywood handshake (Channel 4)

In scenes airing on tonight's show, Paul stepped in to help out Matt as he tried to mix his biscuits together. Matt was clearly struggling with it all, so judge Paul helped in what was an unprecedented moment on the show.

His stained glass biscuits were of the Arsenal emblem and featured red discs on it, which were made with boiled sweets that had been reduced to a sugar syrup and cooled to make the clever biscuits.

Following the round, things got even more controversial as Paul handed out one of his infamous Hollywood handshakes to Matt.

Prue Leith was unsure about his decision, and even tried to bat Paul's hand out the way, but the pair eventually settled on a handshake and Matt was overjoyed to have finally received the honour he had seen many times himself.

Matt even bagged top spot in the technical challenge as he made doughnuts with jam inside and red icing.

The other stars competing failed to get a handshake, despite impressing with their various bakes including their amazing Showstopper novelty cakes. Example's Australian themed cake saw him win this week's show.

Matt previously revealed how him stepping into bake all came about.

He admitted he was nervous about being on the show as a baker rather than a presenter (PA)

"I was forced to bake by my bosses at the last minute when one of the bakers became unavailable. I can’t tell you how happy I was that my humiliation was caught on camera," Matt recently said about switching presenting for baking.

Example described Matt as a "soldier" for stepping into the show last minute.

"I think fair play to him as a lot of people will think maybe he wanted to do this and he didn’t want to do it as he had no preparation, " he explained, "I was told it was me, Annie Mac, Ed Gamble and Martine McCutcheon and I got there and Martine wasn’t there."

He added: "I’m pretty sure that Matt Lucas jumped in at the last minute as obviously he was meant to be one of the presenters. He found out the morning we started filming, so he’s the real soldier in all this."

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