What is Bin-gate? How ‘The Great British Baking Show’s Iain Exorcised a Ghost from the Tent’s Past With His Vacherin Glacé Showstopper

The Great British Baking Show on Netflix was haunted by a terrifying specter of the past during “Meringue Week.” For his Vacherin Glacé Showstopper, Belfast baker Iain Ross channeled another Northern Irish Iain’s notorious “Bake Off” fail…

**Spoilers for The Great British Baking Show “Meringue Week,” now streaming on Netflix**

2025’s Iain recreated the infamous Baked Alaska “bin-gate” Great British Baking Show scandal in an attempt to exorcise any remaining demons in the tent. It was a bold move that almost got our wee Irish lad booted from the tent, but nonetheless served as an incredible throwback to one of The Great British Baking Show‘s earliest breakout moments.

If you’ve only ever watched The Great British Baking Show on Netflix, you might have been utterly confused by Iain’s plan to make a meringue trash bin for Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith. To understand “bin-gate,” you have to go back in time to 2014 and The Great British Baking Show‘s modest American debut.

The fifth season of the homegrown BBC hit The Great British Bake Off originally arrived stateside on local PBS stations as The Great British Baking Show Season 1. This iteration of the show was judged by Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry and hosted by life-long best friends Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc. Bakers you might remember from this season include Martha Collinson, Chetna Makan, Luis Troyano, Richard Burr, and eventual winner Nancy Birtwhistle. Specific events you might recall? Oh, just a little something called “bin-gate.”

So what is “bin-gate”? Well, at one point, Paul and Mary asked the bakers to make a spectacular Baked Alaska for their “Desserts Week” Showstopper. Baked Alaska is ice cream and cake topped with meringue, so the ice cream layers have to be frozen to support the rest of the bake. In a terrible twist, two of the five refrigerators in the tent were broken on an exceptionally hot summer day. Elderly contestant Diana Beard briefly took Iain Watters’s Baked Alaska out of one fridge to make room for hers and she absent-mindedly forgot Iain’s dish on the bench.

Producers would eventually assert that Iain’s Baked Alaska was only exposed to the hot air for all of a minute, but by the time he found it, it had begun to melt. Rather than rally, Iain tossed his Showstopper in “the bin” in a fit of frustration. When it came time for judging, he served Paul and Mary an empty tray and brought the trash can to the front of the tent. Iain was eliminated, Diana was brutalized by British fans on Twitter, Iain tried to defend her, but Diana withdrew from the competition anyway after suffering a fall at home.

Everything about “bin-gate,” from Iain’s temper tantrum to the fans’ online abuse of Diana, was very messy and very much not what The Great British Baking Show is ultimately supposed to be about. To this day, “bin-gate” is also what inevitably pops up if you Google “Iain” and “The Great British Baking Show.” So, maybe it should come as no surprise that this season’s Iain, a cheeky guy with a fun sense of humor, looked to the other Iain’s disastrous ice cream and meringue Showstopper for inspiration for his ice cream and meringue Showstopper.

Iain Ross cleverly realized that a Vacherin Glacé is very close in style to a Baked Alaska. It’s just French, ergo slightly fancier. So Iain borrowed the other Iain’s Baked Alaska flavors and molded his sculpted meringue case into the shape of a trash bin. This season’s judges, Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith, loved the idea, but not the execution.

While Paul and Prue appreciated the rough and ready look of Iain’s bin-gate, bake, they loathed the flavor combination. When they complained about how the chocolate and coffee ice creams clashed on the palate, Iain gave them a genius excuse. He used the other Iain’s flavors, so it couldn’t be his fault. Nevertheless, Iain found himself on the bottom this week and in danger of getting tossed out himself.

Ultimately, however, Paul and Prue sent 59-year-old hairdresser Lesley Holloway home. She had struggled throughout all three Challenges and Iain had won the soufflé Technical.

If Iain’s “bin-gate” bake has taught us anything about The Great British Baking Show, it’s probably that you don’t want to be a Northern Irish guy named Iain presenting Paul Hollywood with a trash bin at judging.