The Great British Bake Off cooks up a board game

Ding! Grab your gloves and try not to burn yourself on cynicism, because the licensing oven has cooked up yet another tabletop adaptation of a well-known pop-culture property. What’s that smell? Dough? It can only mean one thing: The Great British Bake Off is being turned into a board game.

Based on the UK cookery show known for cake-related innuendo and some fairly staggering bread-based creations, The Great British Baking Show Game - using the series’ considerably more awkward US and Canadian title - will put two to four players in the flour-dusted aprons of bakers in the GBBO tent.

As wannabe star bakers, the players will need to fulfil a variety of recipe cards - ranging from tiger loar and creme brulee to gingerbread people and layer cake - by arranging cards representing the different elements of a bake, from its fruit filling to an outside crumb. Each of the recipes is depicted in an illustration by Tom Hovey, familiar from his artwork for the TV show’s bakes.

Grabbing the best flavours will maximise the chance of successfully completing a recipe and advancing the player’s score from simply finishing their bake to achieving a “great bake” or fabled “Hollywood handshake”. However, they’ll need to manage their time carefully to avoid being forced to add a “soggy” card to their construction - thus risking a “soggy bottom” and the giggles of middle-class households up and down the nation.

Players can get a helping hand by playing ‘Help!’ cards to grab cards from the centre of the table and try and salvage a bake gone awry. If things go too badly, they can even consign cards from their current bake to the bin once per round. Finishing first will net the baker bonus points.

Like each episode of the TV show, the Great British Bake Off board game will be split into three rounds covering signature, technical and showstopper bakes, which are then divided into recipe categories from biscuits and bread to cakes and desserts. Rather than lasting an hour, the board game will play in around 20 minutes.

Stirring up The Great British Baking Show Game’s mixing bowl of cardboard is publisher Ravensburger, which has previously adapted the likes of Jaws, The Princess Bride, Minecraft and Disney’s rogues’ gallery of villains into board games.

The upcoming board game will be released this August, with a price to be announced.