Great British Bake Off fans have expressed their delight at the revelation that the show will include a 'vegan week' this year, meaning that the contestants would have to find substitute ingredients for commonly used baking products including butter, eggs, milk and cream. Speaking about the introduction of the new theme during a Q&A, Paul Hollywood said: "We wanted something different and something to represent what was happening in this country. Veganism is something that seems to be growing. That's why it is in."
Prue and Paul opened up about vegan week
He continued: "If you are a vegan or you’re thinking about it and are just worried about how it is going to change your life, watch it and see. It fascinated me, totally … shocked me as well." Paul and his co-judge, Prue Leith, confirmed that they treated the week like any other. Paul said: "You can't judge it and say it's okay for vegan, it's got to taste good, period. That's how we judged it and we were surprised," while Prue added: "You shouldn't miss that one."
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Fans of the show have reacted positively to the news, with one writing: "I've never watched the programme but a vegan week only serves to show how popular veganism has become," while another added: "Listening to the radio this morning and apparently in this year's #GBBO there will be a Vegan week. Well I'm really looking forward to that." The pair also revealed that they were introducing a Danish week in honour of one of the presenters, Sandi Toksvig, with Paul explaining: "We cover different weeks over the years and we thought Danish week was quite apt this year because of Sandi. So we went to Sandi 'here's some ideas of the things we could use' and it was a great thing actually.'"
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