Sidmouth<\/a> with his three siblings, now loves in Warwickshire with his girlfriend, and was one of twelve new amateur bakers to enter the iconic Bake Off tent.<\/p>\nAnd although he made it through to the next week, the 29-year-old was part of an awkward moment with judge Paul Hollywood during the episode.<\/p>\n
For the new series, the show introduced a new twist to the Technical challenge which many viewers dubbed as “harsh”.<\/p>\n
The twist meant bakers weren’t given a recipe ahead of the Technical, where they had to bake nine identical French Fancies, and even had ingredients in front of them that weren’t meant for the recipe.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the challenge, bakers were given a fondant fancy to taste test and look at to help them figure out what they needed to do.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_The-Great-British-Bake-Off-2024.jpg\")
The Great British Bake Off Series 16 contestant Toby(Image: PA)<\/p>\n
It proved a struggle for everyone, but Toby ultimately came first in the challenge, but Paul issued a stern message.<\/p>\n
After announcing that Toby was the winner, the other bakers began to clap, before Paul bluntly told the others to “not clap”, as he quipped they still weren’t perfect.<\/p>\n
Viewers were quick to call Paul’s comment out, with one fan comparing him to a “toxic” manager.<\/p>\n
They wrote on social media: “Paul thinking he’s a manager in a toxic workplace, where no clear instruction is given and you’re not allowed to receive praise for doing well anyway”.<\/p>\n
Another said: “How can Paul tell them not to clap”.<\/p>\n
While a third wrote: “Is it me or has Paul managed to become even more insufferable with his poor jokes and incessant digs?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was an awkward encounterPaul Hollywood’s ‘toxic’ message to Devon GBBO contestant has viewers fuming(Image: Channel 4) Great…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,53896,52218,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-111715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-sidmouth","tag-the-great-british-bake-off","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_Image.jpg\")
Paul Hollywood’s ‘toxic’ message to Devon GBBO contestant has viewers fuming(Image: Channel 4)<\/p>\n