“On your marks, get set, bake!”
That is the cue for 10 bakers from across Canada to begin baking on The Great Canadian Baking Show, the Canadian adaptation of The Great British Baking Show. One of these bakers is Jasmine Linton, a fourth-year criminology student at Carleton and the show’s youngest contestant.
Linton was introduced to baking by her grandmother when she was two-years-old, sparking her passion for the art.
As a kid, she had dreams of being on a competitive cooking show, but the timing was never on her side. She was either too young for the adult shows or too old for the children’s competitions to participate.
So when the opportunity came to be on The Great Canadian Baking Show, she was “over the moon to do it,” Linton said.
“I found out right in the middle of final exams,” she said. “And I had to do all this practicing and I was like, ‘I’ve got to finish this psych assignment, I don’t want to make this huge red sculpture right now. I want to work on psych stuff.’ It was kind of tricky balancing it.”
On the show, bakers go through three rounds of challenges: the signature bake, the technical bake, and the showstopper. At the end of each week, one baker is crowned “Star Baker.”
Linton’s moment of glory came four episodes in, during the showstopper round, when her graduation-style strawberry lemon Moscato slab cake impressed the judges.
Judge Bruno Feldeisen said the cake was “delicious and told a great story.” He also described Linton as “very creative” on episode two of the show—Biscuit Week.
Linton, for her part, described her baking style as “eclectic.”
“I like to try tons of different things and mix tons of different things together,” she said. “I really try to focus on the flavour of my things, making sure things are well-balanced and nothing is too sweet or overpowering in their flavour.”
Speaking about her victory on the show, Linton said winning gave her a boost of confidence.
“I thought at the beginning that I didn’t really belong here and I was super out of my depth, but I’m Star Baker—I’m Star Baker! So, I think I can handle this,” she said.
While Linton is passionate about her criminology studies, she plans to make a career from baking.
“I’m hoping to do something pastry [related] and kind of have criminology as my backup,” she said.
It is the creative freedom associated with baking, Linton said, that appeals to her the most.
“I like being able to create something that I can give to other people and that they enjoy,” she said. “I think it’s really cool that you’re essentially making something out of nothing, and then you can do so much variation on a few things.”
Feature image by Jordan Haworth.
