For 10 seasons, The Great Canadian Baking Show has brought amateur bakers from across the country into its signature white tent, where technical skill, creativity and a ticking clock turn home baking into a national competition. This season, one of those bakers is representing Ottawa, and bringing something to the tent that the show has never seen before.
Stittsville’s Andrew Arcello, a music, drama and art teacher at Elmwood School, is the first plant-based baker to compete on The Great Canadian Baking Show. For Arcello, however, the goal was to never hear that his baking was good “for plant-based.” He wanted it to stand on its own, alongside everything else in the tent, without the qualifier.
It’s an approach built over years of practice. Arcello began eating vegetarian in his late teens before transitioning to a fully plant-based diet a few years later. His interest in baking became more serious after the birth of his two daughters about a decade ago.
“I realized very quickly that the connections you make with people, the relationships you build, and what you can learn about yourself through baking were much deeper than I had thought,” he says.
Those connections stretch back to his own childhood. Arcello remembers the small television in his family kitchen playing daytime food shows, his mother flipping through cookbooks and his grandmother’s suitcase filled with recipes collected from friends, newspapers and magazines.
“We planned meals, talked about food, and prepared for gatherings with the idea of dessert first,” he says. “I didn’t realize it then, but I was learning that desserts were going to be a huge part of my life.”
Today, the kitchen has become a similar gathering place for Arcello and his daughters. They’ve baked together since they were old enough to join him at the counter, turning recipes into opportunities to talk, problem-solve, experiment and spend time together.
“The kitchen is a classroom that can teach a lot more than how to mix flour and sugar,” he says.
There’s a natural crossover with his other classroom. After 17 years working in schools, Arcello sees baking and arts education as different expressions of the same creative instinct. Both encourage experimentation, celebrate tradition and, occasionally, require becoming comfortable with a little chaos.
His path to the Baking Show tent took patience. Arcello first applied approximately five years ago and didn’t make the cast. Instead, he kept reading, practising and refining his skills before trying again, motivated in part by the opportunity to introduce plant-based baking to a national audience.
That call finally came in March.
“My daughters were upstairs playing and I yelled up telling them, ‘I’m going to be on The Great Canadian Baking Show!’” he recalls. “They were thrilled, did a little happy dance, and then my eldest said, ‘They’re going to film me too, right?’”
Months later, viewers are watching that experience unfold as Season 10 airs. By November, the competition is well underway, with Arcello introducing judges and viewers to what can be accomplished without relying on the traditional staples of eggs and dairy.
“Plant-based eating, cooking, and baking is NOT about limitations,” he says. “If we can move beyond the egg and milk talk and consider what purpose those items are serving, there are many other things that can do that.”
Inside the tent, those ideas meet the same pressure as every other bake. Arcello remembers feeling surprisingly calm when he first walked onto the set, a feeling that disappeared almost immediately when the competition began.
“The feeling of calm became panic within a millisecond of hearing, ‘On your marks, get set, bake,’” he says. “It’s a weird combination of panic, fun, laughter, tears, and pride inside the tent.”
And the clock, he confirms, is very real.
“I thought, ‘Maybe it’s a bit of a TV thing and they’ll let you finish if you’re close enough.’ I can say with certainty that the timer is real and when they say ‘hands off,’ they mean it.”
Away from the cameras, the experience also created friendships. Arcello says the Season 10 bakers remain in a group chat, sharing everything from baking photos to life updates and troubleshooting questions.
For Arcello, appearing on the show was never intended to launch a new career. He’s working on his doctorate, continuing to teach and, of course, still baking at home with his daughters.
“I simply sought to bring plant-based food to a national conversation,” he says. “I will continue to welcome those opportunities as they arise and use food as the powerful ambassador it is for cultural understanding and a language of love.”
