The winner of this year’s Great British Bake Off told Premier Christian News that her faith in Jesus carried her through the UK’s most-watched cooking show.
Jasmine Mitchell, 23, is the youngest contestant in the series to win ‘Star Baker’ of the week five times, and is the second person ever to do so, alongside series five’s Richard Burr.
“My faith has become stronger and stronger over the last year,” she told Premier. “Being under the high pressure [of TV] really pushed me to rely on Jesus, on God, because there were a lot of situations where I just felt completely unequipped”.
Jasmine said she applied to the show on “a complete whim,” after being encouraged by a friend.
Her love of baking stemmed from hospitality being at the heart of her Christian upbringing. “I’ve grown up in a family which gathers around food,” she shared. “I’ve learnt a lot from my mum, aunts, family and friends who love bringing people together around the table”.
Jasmine recalled the Lord’s prayer being a mantra of peace during stressful times on the show: “Walking to the tent from the green room, or waiting, I would just pray the Lord’s prayer a lot in my head. It didn’t take away the stress, but I felt like God was walking along beside me with it”.
Whilst stirring up showstoppers each week, Jasmine was also studying for a medicine degree, balancing her time between filming and exams.
“I would look back at the end of the week and just feel completely held by God,” she recalled. “It was a complete kind of miracle, to be honest, that I had managed to get through it!”
At age ten, Jasmine began losing her hair due to alopecia. Throughout her teen years, she wore wigs, saying: “I was just so keen to look like everyone else I was around. To fit in and just not stick out, basically”.
However, in her early 20s, she decided to embrace her natural look, telling Premier that it has been a journey of identity and faith.
“Often, I would pray for my hair back, in a sense of: ‘This is what I want, this is what healing looks like to me.’ Ironically, healing isn’t just what we ask for.
“God has healed me to make me more whole, and more me,” Jasmine said. “I’m now starting to enjoy being different and just going with that. It's definitely a process of learning to see myself the way God sees me”.
Throughout the competition, Jasmine’s church family has been integral to her success. She began by secretly sharing her on-show bakes with them, bringing broken-down bits of cake to have with after-service coffee.
“My showstopper for week one was this three-tiered blackberry pistachio cake,” she recalled. “In practice, it was Sunday, and I kind of just scraped off all the fancy decoration and dismantled it, hoping that no one would actually guess that I was doing anything like being on the Bake Off, which thankfully they didn't!”
And her best recipe for a church bring-and-share? “A brownie! They’re super simple and basic, but they’re my go-to bake. Chuck it in the oven,” she laughed.
“Last week, my brownies were still literally hot, so I was carrying them with a tea towel on the tube in the rain to church, because I didn't leave myself enough cooling time.”