Selasi: I'll pay you later, Val. Thanks.

Beck: So you come in and they have you do a technical challenge the way it would be in the show?

Selasi: Exactly like that. They basically make it as real as possible, just to make sure that you can cope with the pressure, because it's not easy, baking in the tent. You’re doing your daytime job and you are having to write recipes and practice while being filmed at the same time, while competing with 11 other people who are equally as good as you. It gets really tough. But I think everyone who makes it on the show deserves to be on there, because they've worked their ass off. I don't know if I can say ass.

Beck: You can, it's okay. That's one of the lower-tier ones.

Selasi: Okay. Lower-tier swear words. This is the thing I always tell people: It's one of the best shows, because you go on there, and you’re competing for a bunch of flowers and of course the cake stand. And of course huge opportunities after, because it opens a lot of doors for all the bakers. But everyone is very, very friendly and helping each other, and it doesn't actually feel like a competition. It ends up feeling like a group of friends, baking together in the same kitchen and just having fun.

Val: I remember I was doing my gingerbread [on the show], and it collapsed. I’m going “Ahhh!” and I think it was you who said, "I've got some glitter." You threw some glitter over to me and put icing sugar and glitter all over it and we just kept it going. And that's what bakers do. You shout out that you need a bowl or a whisk, and one of your baking friends will get it for you. You know those trenches in the war? It’s kind of like that.

Selasi: She's going war story on you now.

Val: I'm not that old. You do—you look after each other, you protect each other's backs, and it makes for a long-standing friendship.

Beck: I think a lot of Americans, myself included, really love the show because it seems so much friendlier than American reality shows.

Selasi: I've heard that before. American reality shows, they'll literally stab you and push you under a bus at the same time.

Beck: I don't know if you've seen American cooking shows, but there's actually one where the whole point is to sabotage the other chefs. It's called Cutthroat Kitchen.

Val: My sister lives in New York, so for the past 10 years I've been watching American cooking programs when I'm over there. They record them for me. I think what it is, is they offer large sums of money. We don't get offered any money. It's a bunch of flowers and the kudos of winning. If they put a hundred thousand pounds on it, you might start thinking, Well, I'm not going to help him. And that doesn't happen on Bake Off, does it, Sel?

Selasi: Nah. Because there's no money, no one is stabbing each other. And if I'll be honest with you, if you did win a lump sum, I still don’t think it’d be like that, because—no offense to the Americans—but I think it's an English thing where we're nice. We like competition, but we're still polite.