The Great British Baking Show [1] is now streaming its latest season on Netflix, and the cast of collection seven is definitely living up to expectations! Thirteen amateur bakers [2], all with colorful personalities and a shared love for baking [3], entered the tent this year [4], and for once, Netflix is streaming episodes on a weekly basis to coordinate with the UK broadcast, rather than dropping the full season to binge at once. As the new season gets underway, we're already loving the new batch of contestants. Keep reading to learn a little bit more about each of the cast members, courtesy of their official Channel 4/Netflix bios [5] also published in The Telegraph, and where you can find them all on social media! (No spoilers here — we've included every baker, whether they've been eliminated or not.)
Phil Thorne
Phil is one of the "elder statesmen" in this year's competition, as a 56-year-old HGV driver with a wife and two daughters. According to his official bio, he loves motorcycles and is particularly popular with fellow bikers for always bringing baked goods to their meetings!
Where to follow: Instagram [6], Twitter [7]
Henry Bird
Henry is a 20-year-old college student, studying English literature at Durham University. He first discovered an interest in baking 8 years earlier when a previous season of The Great British Baking Show [8] was filmed in a park near his home.
Where to follow: Instagram [9], Twitter [10]
Alice Fevronia
Alice is a 28-year-old geography teacher living in East London who perfected her baking skills while living abroad in New Zealand. Now, she uses her baking skills for an unexpected purpose: she creates special cakes to help teach geography lessons to her students!
Where to follow: Instagram [11], Twitter [12]
Rosie Brandreth-Poynter
28-year-old Rosie is juggling her weekend baking-show competition with her regular life as a veterinary surgeon. She lives a rural life with her husband and a slew of animals, and she apparently brings boxes of mixed pastries to the nurses she works with!
Where to follow: Instagram [13], Twitter [14]
Michael Chakraverty
Michael, 26, pulls from a wide variety of influences. He has Indian heritage, but is heavily influenced by his Scottish upbringing. He's also juggling two very different professional gigs: as a fitness instructor and as the manager of a theater company in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Where to follow: Instagram [15], Twitter [16]
Helena Garcia
An online project manager living in Leeds, Helena, 40, embraces her Spanish roots in her baking, as well as having a fondness for American flavors. She lives with her husband and baby daughter, and she apparently is a big fan of all things Halloween [17], even calling herself a "kitchen witch"!
Where to follow: Instagram [18], Twitter [19]
Priya O'Shea
The 34-year-old marketing consultant lives in Leicester with her husband and two children. She's gotten very into vegan baking recently and dreams of traveling the world to taste sweets from different countries.
Where to follow: Instagram [20], Twitter [21]
David Atherton
David, 36, has the fancy job title of "international health advisor" and lives in London. He's spent some time traveling, picking up some unique cooking and baking skills during his time in Malawi, and his favorite thing to bake is breads.
Where to follow: Instagram [22], Twitter [23]
Michelle Evans-Fecci
Michelle is a 35-year-old from Wales who works as an administrator in a print shop. She grew up on a farm and now lives in a seaside town with her husband and their teenage son — she even grows her own vegetables in a home garden.
Where to follow: Instagram [24], Twitter [25]
Amelia Le Bruin
24-year-old Amelia lives in Halifax and works as a sportswear designer. Her official bio states that she's been baking for 19 years, having first learned with her mother and grandmother.
Where to follow: Instagram [26], Twitter [27]
Jamie Finn
Jamie, age 20, is a waiter who's getting ready to study sports science in college. Like fellow young contestant Henry, Jamie was inspired to dig into baking thanks to seeing an earlier season of the show. One more fun fact about him: he's an identical twin!
Where to follow: Instagram [28], Twitter [29]
Steph Blackwell
28-year-old Steph is a shop assistant from Chester. After getting started on baking by her grandfather, she's taken to experimenting with healthier ways to bake.
Where to follow: Instagram [30], Twitter [31]
Dan Chambers
Dan is 32 years old and is a support worker from Worksop, where he lives with his wife and three dogs. Baking and cooking apparently run in his family: his father worked as a chef for the army.
Where to follow: Instagram [32], Twitter [33]