Baker Alex Fitzgerald at Stephens Green Dublin when TV3 launched its second series of the hugely successful The Great Irish Bake Off. The highly anticipated new series will be returning to Irish screens on Wednesday 21st May at 9pm on TV3, with 12 new passionate home bakers looking to test their skills to the limit as they battle it out to be crowned The Great Irish Bake Off's Best Amateur Baker 2014.

Pix Brian McEvoy
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Alex Fitzpatrick



AGE: 17

OCCUPATION: Student 5th Year

LOCATION: Rathfarnham, Dublin

NATIONALITY: Irish

SIGNATURE BAKE: Chocolate fudge brownies – “I know they say chocolate is a drug, but

my brownies really are addictive, just ask anyone who's tried them!”





Alex is an only child and grew up in his grand-parents’ (Margaret and Liam) house with his mum, Linda. Alex is extremely close to his grandparents and says they are like a surrogate mum and dad to him. Granny Margaret is one of his biggest inspirations both in life and in baking. His first memories are of her vanilla and diary milk butter cake. They loved to bake together when he was a child and she is very proud of him appearing on The Great Irish Bake Off.



However as he’s gotten older, he doesn’t bake with his granny that much anymore. This is because he is very opinionated and likes to tell her what to do in the kitchen! Alex has a cookbook of his granny’s which is 40 years old. It’s completely worn and torn and covered in chocolate and all sorts of other stuff, but it is his prize possession. There are no pictures in it, but it has recipes for things such as ‘Brain Cakes’, made out of lamb. He loves to take inspiration from the cookbook and put a modern twist on recipes he finds in there. Alex has turned the utility room at home into his ‘baking room’. He has filled all the presses with his equipment and ingredients and it’s where he spends hours decorating his bakes. When Alex finishes school, he wants to take a year out and work in a bakery. The plan is to then to save enough money to go to Paris and study at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts School. Alex is determined this is his destiny and is not entertaining any other options. Alex’s life revolves around baking; “Baking really is my life.” His passion for baking started in earnest about five years ago, when he baked his own birthday cake. Since then, slowly but surely, food and baking have taken over his life