10 Of The Worst Great British Baking Show Creations Of All Time

"The Great British Bake Off" is a long running TV hit in Britain and America. However, it is known as "The Great British Baking Show" in the U.S., because of Pillsbury's trademark on the phrase "bake off." Regardless of the title, fans everywhere enjoy watching contestants compete in three weekly challenges designed to test their amateur abilities.

The signature bake tests contestants' personalities with rustic recipes that should be attractive and tasty. The technical challenge forces contestants to bake the same dish requiring a specific technical cooking skill. Finally there's the showstopper bake, where contestants must create a professional-grade dish that wows judges. And as "Baking Show" fans know, disaster can unfold at any time.

Some of "The Great British Baking Show's" worst creations revolve around the difficulty of the technical challenge, as bakers struggle with the particulars that make the recipe work, including memorable fails at stroopwafels and maids of honor, an English custard tart. The showstopper challenge also frequently gets the best of contestants, as they wind up with a showstoppingly unfortunate dish, like an infamous David Bowie cake. The flavor is what's most important, and some of the following entries managed that much, but they are all at least remembered for looking remarkably bad.

A treacle tart should be simple: buttery shortcrust filled with a gooey mix of treacle (an inverted sugar syrup akin to a less-intense molasses,) plus breadcrumbs and a touch of lemon zest. But when season 14 contestant Matty attempted this challenge, nearly everything went wrong.

With liquid fillings and uncooked pastries, Matty poured two tarts out onto a plate before deciding the rest of the utterly raw ones — which shouldn't be pourable at all — would stay in their ramekins. His wasn't the only failure, though: the judges called this one of the worst challenges they'd ever seen, with most bakers falling short.

Season 9 contestant Ruby suffered one of the most unforgettable "Baking Show" disasters with her multi-layer vegan cake. She struggled to finish the cake in time, resulting in a roughshod appearance. But the true catastrophe came after time was up, when the top layer collapsed and slid off the cake as Ruby and the other contestants watched in horror.

If you've flown on United Airlines, you're probably familiar with stroopwafels, a Dutch snack consisting of caramel sandwiched between two ultra-thin, flexible waffles. When "The Great British Baking Show" featured these in a season 8 technical challenge, nearly everyone struggled, but none as much as Julia.

Julia's stroopwafels suffer from the same grainy caramel that doomed many of her fellow contestants. But her waffles were also significantly overbaked and snapped like thin cookies, with none of a stroopwafel's signature give.

In one of the more memorable showstopper shortfalls, season 9 contestant Terry's attempt at an Eiffel Tower-shaped cake turned into a last-minute calamity. Things went relatively well until the end, when the cake base couldn't support the tower's all-chocolate top.

Terry tried to fix it, but as time ran out, the delicate chocolate work disintegrated in his hands. He was forced to present only half of a clearly unfinished tower, complete with wooden supports still visible between cake layers. At least the judges thought it tasted good.

Swiss rolls do pretty well in a complete ranking of Little Debbie snacks, but Little Debbie didn't invent this dish. It's based on a larger, gourmet original, which was also the first technical challenge of the "Baking Show's" 16th season. The most memorable entry made an impression for the wrong reasons.

According to the judges, Hassan nailed the flavor of his Swiss roll, but unfortunately it completely collapsed with filling oozing everywhere. Paul Hollywood (one of the judges) commented that the creation, however delicious, looked like it was dropped from a great height. Hassan was the first elimination of the season.

When Chris presented his fortune cookies for this season 8 technical challenge, the judges could immediately tell everything went wrong. Fortune cookies get their iconic shape from being baked in flat circles and folded into position before the fresh cookies harden. But Chris' cookies appeared to be incomplete and misshapen, with some looking overbaked and others underbaked. If the viewers had any doubt that these were a disaster, the judges confirmed it when they both spat their bites out because of raw dough.

Salmon coulibiac is like a fishy beef wellington. The traditional Russian dish with French finesse typically contains salmon with rice, herbs, and vegetables, wrapped and baked inside pastry. Season 9 contestant Dan had the fun idea of making his Salmon Coulibiac look like an actual salmon. It didn't go well.

Salmon coulibiac is a wide, flat dish, so Dan's version looked more like a silvery monkfish than salmon. Because of its striking resemblance to raw fish, judge Prue Leith said it was unappetizing to look at. And more unfortunately, Dan's pastry — in a pastry-focused challenge — was raw.

A Baked Alaska is one of the vintage ice cream desserts everyone should try once. Solid ice cream encased in freshly baked, caramelized meringue is quite the technical feat, but season 5 contestant Iain's Baked Alaska went sideways through no fault of his own.

Another baker removed Iain's ice cream from the freezer and didn't put it back, melting the dessert too much for the dish to work. With no time to start over, a frustrated Iain shockingly threw the entire dish in the trash and presented nothing, leading to his elimination — and the "Baking Show" controversy known as Bingate.

Season 11 featured one of the show's most difficult showstoppers, with contestants baking a cake to resemble a chosen celebrity. Most entries left the judges giggling at their appearance, but perhaps the most memorable was Mark's Ziggy Stardust cake, inspired by the late David Bowie's alter ego.

The only clues to its identity were Ziggy Stardust's signature red hair and red lightning bolt over the right eye — all considerably misshapen or discolored. Mark himself said it looked more like Jabba the Hutt than David Bowie. It didn't taste right either, as the judges found the cake itself dense and overbaked.

Season 10 of "Baking Show" featured perhaps the most difficult technical challenge in the program's history: maids of honor, small pastry tarts filled with sweet curd cheese (similar to a low-fat cottage cheese,) said to have been a favorite of Henry VIII.

This was the first technical challenge in the show's history that every contestant failed, but none worse than Priya. She only submitted 5 of the required 10 tarts, and they were all visibly undercooked or collapsed, including one that was upside down. Priya's were the only tarts the judges didn't even try, because nothing was edible.