With several diehard BBC fans in my life, I had heard of “The Great British Baking Show” over the years, but it never piqued my interest enough to add it to my Netflix queue. However, after a mind-boggling number of pandemic-binged shows, I settled down to watch an episode last October with my fiancé and his mother.

We all soon became enthralled with a seemingly endless stream of ingredients, methods and recipes we’d never even knew existed. Even though we spent a fair bit of each episode Googling one thing or another, we marathoned season after season while realizing our British counterparts apparently are taught way more about the culinary arts than the average American.

For the uninitiated, each episode consists of three baking challenges within a theme such as breads, chocolate or pastry. The contestants usually are given the parameters of two of those challenges to develop a recipe and practice before the weekend competitions, but the third challenge is often an obscure recipe with vague directions that often leave the participants producing less than stellar baked goods. At the end of the episode, one of the bakers earns the title of star baker while a second is sent packing.

Well, fast forward to season 11 that took place in early 2020 with the contestants, hosts, judges and crew all quarantined for the duration of filming. It was interesting to kick off 2021 watching this season and realizing that while nearly a year had transpired since the episodes were filmed, COVID-19 is still altering our daily lives. As such, my fiancé and I began discussing our Valentine’s Day plans. Ultimately we opted to forgo eating out, instead testing our own British baking skills by making a few recipes from the show.

Prior to watching the show, I’d never really contemplated making pastry from scratch, and my only recollection of the word “pasty” is from Harry Potter. I soon realized that a pasty is basically a hand pie — think fancy Hot Pocket — to provide workers with a portable and filling lunch on the go.

One of the contestants, Laura, made one that the judges described as heavenly tasting, so we looked up the recipe on thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk and set about translating the ingredients and measurements into ones we understood.

Despite being woefully unsure of our pastry-making skills, we spent Valentine’s Day creating this deliciously posh pie that we both decided we’d happily have again. Here’s hoping you enjoy it as much as we did.