Contestants haven’t even served up as much as a fairy cake yet, but this year’s Great British Bake Off has already been scorched by critics for an alleged sexist incident over icing.

You might think the most genteel reality show on TV would have nothing more controversial than a soggy bottom to worry about, but promo shots of the contestants stirring bowls of icing have landed the BBC in hot water already.

The pictures show the bakers with “gendered” icing – blue for the men and pink for the women.

GBBO contestant Benjamina (Mark Bourdillon/BBC/PA)The women on the show were pictured with pink icing, while the men had blue (Mark Bourdillon/BBC/PA)

People were quick to pick up on the styling when the snaps were released to introduce this year’s batch of contestants ahead of series seven, which launches next week.

Even the Lib Dem leader waded into the row.

However, not everyone was offended.

The BBC declined to comment but later seemed to have backtracked when it tweeted a new image of the bakers in exactly the same poses… but with different colours of icing.

Past controversies on the show have included baked Alaska-gate, where one contestant took another’s chilled dessert out of the freezer and left it to melt, and a confusion over custard when one baker took someone else’s and used it in their own trifle.