The Scottish teacher who found accidental fame on Bake Off

“I only applied because I thought I wouldn’t get on,” he says.

“I thought it might be a funny story to tell in 10 years about whatever stage I made it to. I hadn’t even thought about asking for time off from work … and then I got a phone call telling me I was on the show.”

He adds, with a laugh: “All I could think was oh, Kevin – what have you done …?”

Today’s cake is a “posh” Victoria sponge, with oozy rhubarb jam and an unusual custard buttercream. (“It’s made by adding a small amount of crème pat,” explains Flynn, helpfully, as he swings the icing bag around to soften the mix. “I once did this with an icing bag after I had snipped the hole in the end. Rum butter, all over the ceiling …”)

The rhubarb jam is homemade, although not with homegrown rhubarb, Flynn admits.

“We did try growing our own, but the dog just ripped it out,” he says. “We can’t plant anything apart from grass. It’s ridiculous.”

Flynn is chatty and obliging, and at ease posing for the photographer. This is to be expected for someone who spent weeks whipping, piping and kneading in front of steely-eyed judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith, celebrity hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas, and millions of viewers.

“Baking is like music, I do still get nervous – but it’s how you deal with the nerves,” he says, as he trims the two sponges, flipping leftover slices of cake on to a plate. (“I keep those, and fold them over with some jam and cream – cake calzone,” he says, adding with a grin: “Making Italians everywhere weep …”)

Kevin Flynn grew up in Newarthill, near Motherwell, where his mother, Julie, “baked all the time” when he and his sisters Louise and Joanna and brother Brian were little.

“When we went to school, she went back to work, and didn’t have the time to bake,” he says. “But she had all her recipes in a notebook, and those are what taught me to bake and cook.

“We were a big church family. My mum worked a lot with young people, and lots of them called her ‘mum’ too. If me and my brother and sisters wanted to get her attention, we’d end up just shouting – ‘Julie!’

“My mum is an inspiration. A coach, a mentor, a spiritual guide – she’s an amazing woman.”
Little signs of Bake Off are dotted around Flynn’s Hamilton home, which he shares with wife Rachel, cat Rupert, and aforementioned menace of a dog, Judy the Airedale terrier.

In the kitchen, all pristine white surfaces and soft blue walls, a fig and hazelnut cake sits below a How To Cook Everything poster. 

Nearby are more jars of home-made jam, chilli this time. (“Don’t want to get that mixed up with the rhubarb,” Flynn adds, with a laugh.) 

On the shelves in the living room sits a replica cake he was presented with on sister show An Extra Slice, and a framed illustration of one of his best bakes, a delicious dessert made from chocolate and banana mousses and crème mousseline, called What the Dog Dug.

“There was another bit to that model, but the dog ate it,” explains Flynn, with a sigh. “It was made of green polystyrene. We could not work out why on earth she was pooing green all week, until we spotted part of the model was missing.”

Flynn made it to the final six of Bake Off (which returns to Channel 4 on Tuesday), when a collapsed custard cake ended his hopes of making the final. 

“Being on Bake Off – it’s what you make it,” he says. “I went into it to bake some cakes, make a fool of myself and play to the home crowd as the token Scot.”

He grins. “Of course, I get there and James [Dewar] is there, who is also Scottish, and he’s wearing a kilt,” he groans. “And all I could think was, oh no, he has out-Scottished me.”

Flynn adds, seriously: “But I was probably quite naïve. Some of the bakers were definitely there with plans, wanting to use it as a platform to other things. But if you are going into it pinning all your career hopes on it, that’s got to be stressful.

“I didn’t think of it like that. If you want to work in TV, I think you really have to move to London and I don’t want to do that. I love my job, I would rather stay here and just do little baking passion projects on the side – things I can fit around my work.”

As an instrumental music teacher, Kevin has worked in around 40 primary schools across Scotland. 
Previously, he taught in secondary schools. He is also a musician, playing sax, flute, clarinet and piano with function and wedding bands, and for musical theatre, most recently in the Madness musical Our House, with Minerva Theatre Company.

“I wear multiple hats, as Kevin the musician, Kevin the husband, teacher, baker and Christian,” he says. 

“First and foremost is my faith. It is hard to juggle everything, to find the time to do them all very well. 

“I’m really bad for saying yes to too many things, and then not being able to invest as much time as I want to into family, or church, or teaching.

“But I do always find a way to draw inspiration from each one.”

He says he was a “late starter” to music, not picking up an instrument until he was 14. After graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) in Glasgow he took a break from music, only returning when his friends, rather brutally, made him busk on Sauchiehall Street on his stag night.

“They blindfolded me, dropped me off and handed me my saxophone, and told me to get on with it,” he says, wincing at the memory. 

“I made no money whatsoever.”

He adds, smiling: “I suppose there are worse things that could happen to you on a stag night.”
Flynn is still in touch with friends he made on the show – he messages Syabira Yusoff (who won the 2022 series) “every day”, goes swimming with James Dewar and catches up often with Carole Dewar and Janusz Domagala.

“I think the production team cast the show really carefully, and pick people who want to help each other, rather than knock each other down,” he says. “It is such a terrifying experience for everyone, that you do feel like you’re in it together.

“And what was great was that the minute our names were announced, past contestants got in touch to say congrats, and enjoy it, and don’t panic – they were really, really supportive.”

He adds: “I really appreciated that. So I’m glad I now get to be that person for someone else.”
Flynn is thoughtful when asked if the experience has changed his life.

“It’s what you make it,” he replies, slowly. “I’ve been on a journey with stress my whole life and the deal I made with myself when I went on Bake Off, was that I would only go as far, and work as hard, as I was enjoying it.

“I first suffered from acute stress when I was about 18. That’s when I started baking – it was a decompression.  

“I’ve had to learn how to manage it throughout my life and career.”

He explains: “Saying yes to Bake Off – I couldn’t have done it 10 years ago. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I was in a much better place to cope with it.”

He adds, with a grin: “And I don’t like a missed opportunity.”

One of the hardest parts of the experience was being away from Rachel, and from home for almost two months. (The show was filmed in the grounds of Welford Park, a country house and estate in Newbury, Berkshire.)

The couple met as students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where Rachel studied flute and Kevin saxophone. They have just celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary.

“We were friends, both Christians, both loved music,” says Flynn. “It was easy to see a future together.”

Since leaving the series, Flynn has taken on some commissions for food magazines and the Scripture Union and is now preparing for next summer’s food festivals. 

“I’m never going to forget the experience of being on Bake Off,” he says. “I still have to pinch myself, when I realise I’m part of that amazing history, and I find it endlessly hilarious they put me on the show.”

He will be watching, he says, when the new series starts – but with his heart in his mouth.

“Just because I know what they are going through,” he says. “I know how scary it is.”

As for the feared and revered Paul Hollywood, who has a reputation for being hard to please, Flynn is diplomatic.

“He’s a sweet enough guy,” he says. 

“I think he feels like he has to play to this caricature that has been created, but actually, he seems quite reserved. 

“You don’t really spend a lot of time with the judges, to be honest – it would be weird, given that they are then having to comment on your work. So you only really speak to them when they are walking around the tent, or at the end.”

Flynn has found the experience of being recognised on the streets of Hamilton a little unsettling.

“I find the whole idea of fame, of being ‘a celebrity’ a bit icky,” he says, his nose wrinkling in disgust. 

“There’s a real difference between how you’re viewed up here in Scotland, against down south. People up here don’t really stop you for a selfie, they’d probably rather just get to know you a bit better first.

“But while the show was still on last year, a few of us went to a big cake and bake expo in London, and it was very weird. We were just having a look around, and someone spotted us, and asked us for a photo.”

He marvels: “In seconds, this huge queue just formed in front of us, of people wanting a picture. It was bizarre – we were trapped, and it was only when one of the production team at the show came over and helped us escape backstage that we could get away.”

Flynn admits he had never written his own recipes until he appeared on the show. “That was a new experience for me, because of course, everything has to be original,” he says. 

“Until then, I’d always followed someone else’s. It was a steep learning curve, but I really, really enjoyed it.

“Bake Off actually helped me uncover something I didn’t realise I would enjoy so much.”
Back in his kitchen, the finished Victoria sponge – now beautifully decorated and photographed from every angle – is en route to the school where Flynn will be teaching the next day.

“I feel like I have to take in baking, wherever I go,” he says, almost apologetically. “I mean, I was on Bake Off. 

“People do sort of expect it.”

The Great British Bake Off airs on Channel 4, this Tuesday at 8pm