Have you ever watched a cooking show and thought ‘glad I’m not washing up after that’? Well spare a thought for Iva Vcelak.

Iva is one of the heroes behind the scenes on the Great British Bake Off, which returns at 8pm on Wednesday (August 6) on BBC1.

Dishwashers are too noisy to run during filming so she washes every spatula and bowl by hand.

This year, she was scrubbing away for more than 160 hours and got through 1,000 cloths, 80 sponges and 30 litres of washing up liquid.

There’s no word on what happens to the completed cakes after judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry have tasted them, but News Shopper would like to volunteer to ‘dispose’ of them.

Read our interviews with Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood here and last year’s runner-up Kimberley Wilson here.

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