8 can't-miss moments of The Great British Baking Show: Season 7

The seventh season of The Great British Baking Show— airing Wednesdays 8pm (8:30 NL) on CBC— is bittersweet. Yes, it delivers a new crop of bakers, and yes, it sees the show's first batter-centric challenge. But it also marks the end of an era. It is the last season featuring the original cast. Only Paul Hollywood will remain as the British series migrates to a new network in the UK.

But before you begin crying as hard as I did during the GBBS finale, keep your eyes attuned to the next 10 episodes. You'll never look at duelling knights the same way again.

1. The Selasi and Benjamina friendship

Enter: a dynamic superior to even Mel and Sue's. And while the key word is "friendship" (since Selasi has — and makes a reference to — a girlfriend), who cares: watching two of the funniest and most charismatic bakers in series history form a fast friendship is the stuff of baking tent dreams. Just don't blame me when you begin judging the friends you have already for not being nearly as fun as Benjamina and Selasi. (Even though I've been doing that for months.)

2. Tom's tiny fan

For a fleeting second, we meet Tom's fan: a small, handheld, battery-operated machine that's meant to cool cakes about ten times its side. But whether it does successfully doesn't matter. What does is Selasi's reaction to it: a mix of intrigue, adoration, and whatever emotion it is when you'd tell your mom you were going to grow up to be Batman. ("Aw.")

3. Andrew's Tudor Week

Where Season 6 saw The Great British Baking Show go back to the Victorian era, Season 7 brings us Tudor Week and with it, three challenges fit for a king. But who cares about those? Instead, within the hour, Andrew demonstrates how to use a miniature spice grinder (worth it for the gif alone) before mistakenly positioning two sugar swords on his marzipan knights in a questionable...place.

Ultimately, come for the sugar work. Stay for Paul and Mary trying to avoid calling out what looks like two caramel . . . appendages.

4. Candice's biscuit pub

As an homage to her family, Candice uses her Biscuit Week showstopper challenge to build a mini version of the King Bill pub her family ran. As a result, every other biscuit in the world will seem like a disgrace to baking and the world entire. Especially since no other biscuit has led to Mary Berry exclaiming, "I'll eat some carpet."

5. Val's baking serenades

To know Val is to love Val. Especially since the retired headmistress not only works out while baking ("Move a little, lose a lot!"), but knows her cakes and bakes are done because they sing to her. They sing to her. And yet, it makes sense — especially since you begin to see her baking contemporaries start listening to their bakes, too.

6. Every joke in the world about balls

Bread balls. Dough balls. Undercooked and understuffed balls. Underproofed and overcooked balls. With hardly a hint of irony. (Drink every time someone says "balls.") (Yes, I am an adult woman.)

7. Tom's Hammer of Thor™

That resembles something else. That resembles something else in such an obvious way that he has to tell Mel to stop referencing what she thinks it resembles because his Mum is watching. Is that the Hammer of Thor™ or are you just happy to see me? . . . Will not be a question Tom chooses to answer. (Mainly because he wasn't asked, but that's why I should be hosting this series, if I'm honest.)

8. "You bake it with love"

I won't tell you who leaves the show with one of the most emotional monologues I've heard ever, let alone on a reality competition series about baking bread. But I will say that when it happens, you will find yourself compelled to crank Ed Sheeran, take a few few steps in solidarity, and schedule an appointment to receive the first-ever GBBS-themed tattoo in history.