Great British Bake Off accused of cultural appropriation after 'racist and ignorant' episode

The Great British Bake Off has faced backlash for its inaugural “Japanese Week” with people slamming the episode as “ignorant and racist”.

The baking show set three Japanese-inspired challenges for the contestants on Tuesday’s episode – steam buns, a matcha mille crepe cake and a “kawaii” show-stopper round.

But during the steam bun challenge, some of the contestants used non-Japanese Asian-inspired flavours.

For example, one contestant made Chinese style pork buns while another used Indian-inspired ingredients like smoked paprika, mango chutney and apple sweetened lentil dahl.

And people thought it was “ignorant and racist”.

As well as cultural appropriation:

While another contestant was called out for decorating her steam buns as pandas – which are from China, not Japan.

GBBO has yet to publicly comment on the backlash.