Oh crumbs! Coleraine's Iain is almost 'toast' during Bread Week but makes it through to next round of Bake Off

Encountering some doughy difficulties with the technical and showstopper challenges, it was Iain’s first bake of the episode on Tuesday (September 16) which saved the day.

For his signature bake, the amateur baker was tasked with making savoury monkey bread – so called as it is made from small balls of dough which everyone pulls apart to eat, like monkeys do, according to judge Prue Leith.

Iain’s Irish Cheese Board monkey bread was a hit with Prue (“I love the flavours”) and bread expert judge Paul Hollywood who said: “You’ve ended up with something that is quite delicious. Superb!”

Moving on to the technical challenge, the contestants were challenged to bake 12 glazed ring doughnuts, all of uniform size, with six dipped in strawberry icing.

Testing all the bakers, the task earned Iain sixth spot with the judges saying his doughnuts “overall weren’t too bad”.

Finally it was on to the showstopper challenge where the bakers had to create a celebration sweet bread with at LEAST three tiers. Iain chose to mark the Celtic precursor to Halloween, Samhain, decorating his bread with all things autumnal and the traditional Irish Halloween hollowed-out turnip.

However, the judges deemed his showstopper to be under-baked and under-proved with Prue saying: “It needed more punch.”

But, Iain had earned his crust with his earlier signature success and went through to the next round of the show, with Pui Man being the latest contestant to leave the Bake Off tent.

Asked if he felt he had dodged a bullet, the jovial north coast man replied: “I dodged a nuke!”