On your marks, get set, bake! The Great British Bake Off returns tonight.

Season four of the BBC’s popular baking show is back, with 13 amateur bakers hoping to follow in the footsteps of last year’s winner, John Whaite.

Leading them through 10 weeks of technical challenges and showstoppers are two culinary celebrities: the man in the dough, Paul Hollywood, and the queen of cakes, Mary Berry.

Assisting them in the Bake Off tent will be comedy duo Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins.

The first episode sees the contestants demonstrate their basic baking skills with a sandwich cake. The first technical challenge is Mary’s Angel Food Cake, and the showstopper sees the participants experiment with chocolate to impress the judges. With a place in the Bake Off tent at risk, do the contestants play it safe, or try something more ambitious?

Since winning the show last year, Whaite has released his own baking book, John Whaite Bakes: Recipes For Every Day And Every Mood.  He is also an ambassador for Baking a Smile, an organisation that provides custom-made birthday cakes for critically ill children.

The final episode of series three of The Great British Bake Off achieved an average of 6.5 million viewers. Since then the series has branched into seasonal episodes, with Mary and Paul demonstrating how to produce Christmas and Easter items, as well as The Great Comic Relief Bake Off.

Since first airing in 2010, previous winners Edd Kimber and Joanne Wheatley have also released their own recipe books, as well as contributing to Sainsbury’s magazine.

Series four starts tonight at 8pm, BBC2.