Over the past five weeks, the bearded 29-year-old has wowed us with chequerboard biscuits, rhubarb brûlées and bread bicycles with Chelsea buns for wheels. Here are a few more reasons to fancy his fondants...
1. Tamal is a trainee anaesthetist, which means he saves lives as well as being easy on the eye. He goes under the Twitter handle @DrRayBakes and his bio is: "Fuzzy haired doctor and lover of cake."
Nearly done! pic.twitter.com/mPzYpRWx5H
— TAMAL RAY (@DrRayBakes) July 27, 2015
2. He's still adorably star-stuck, saying: "Having only seen Mary, Paul, Mel and Sue shrunk down on the telly, it was strange to see them normal-sized in real life."
3. Despite becoming a household name and flour-dusted heart-throb, he still does lovely tributes to great people:
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RIP Oliver Sacks. You had a beautiful, intricate way of seeing the world: http://t.co/8MAHfdEHlx
— TAMAL RAY (@DrRayBakes) August 30, 2015
4. He had no truck with the gluten-free technical challenge, muttering "What the hell?" and "This. Is. Rank."
He also struggles with arithmetic like a normal person: "It's 50% grapefruit juice, 50% blood orange juice and then some honey as well. So, erm, it's not 50% of the others. Ah, maths."
5. He's started a social media sexual frenzy with Bake Off innuendo classics like this:
Tamal can assemble my biscuit box and pipe his icing on it #GBBO
— Lifes Shallow Brûleé (@alexeptable) August 12, 2015
Which he's taken in his endearingly modest style...
Some of the lustier tweets have had me crying with laughter. Also glad my folks aren't on twitter! #GBBO #blushingbaker
— TAMAL RAY (@DrRayBakes) August 5, 2015
6. He likes crossing swords - in a friendly fashion. Feel the Force, Tamal.
Posted by Tamal Ray on Monday, 14 January 2013
7. His older sister taught him how to bake and he got so good at it, she asked him to make her wedding cake.
He made a five-tier cake for his cousin Summer's wedding last year - which took him four days and one all-nighter to finish (of course he's got a cousin called Summer - happiness must run in the family). And this spectacular creation for two of his friends as well...
Happy Anniversary to my friends Aniqah&Qussay! 3 years since an amazing wedding and me making this 5 tier cake. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/MOYQN19mzZ
— TAMAL RAY (@DrRayBakes) August 26, 2015
8. He's a total baking geek. Twice so far in Bake Off, Tamal's injected his cakes with syrup. He also uses a syringe to check their consistency.
9. Tamal's baby nephew once projectile-vomited the lemon drizzle cake he'd just been given all over his uncle. Babies have no taste.
10. To sum it up, this is how Tamal makes us feel...
me when i see tamal pic.twitter.com/l7Tzg5xRpE
— cerys (@cxxrys) August 12, 2015
