Prue: I’m on a cake-only diet during the Bake Off
... but I leave room for a glass of wine for dinner
AS THE age-old saying goes, when it comes to sweet treats: A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.
But Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith has found her own solution – eat nothing but cake.
Dame Prue, 84, says she simply skips breakfast and lunch, and so doesn’t put on any weight.
An added bonus is that it leaves just enough space for a lovely glass of wine, she says.
There is, though, a catch: She adopts the all-cake diet only for the time it takes each year to film the Channel 4 series.
Speaking to The Today Podcast, Dame Prue said: ‘If I look at a cake, I get fat, so I don’t eat breakfast, I don’t eat lunch, I just eat cake and that is the worst diet in the world.
‘But I only do it for 20 days a year or something.
‘I don’t avoid dinner and by the time I’m thinking about dinner I calculate just exactly how many calories I have put into my body during the day and it usually leaves enough calories for a glass of wine so that’s my dinner.
‘I have cake, cake and then a glass of wine, but it’s not every day, it’s two days a week.’
Her comments come as Bake Off nears the end of its contract with cash-strapped broadcaster Channel 4 eight years after the show defected there from the BBC for £25million.
After the forthcoming series, which will begin filming within three months, it will be up for renewal – and that is likely to prompt a bidding war.
Television insiders suggest fierce competition from rivals including ITV and Netflix could mean the show – which sets amateur bakers in competition with each other every week – becomes too costly for Channel 4. Bosses at ITV are said to think that it would be a perfect programme for them to have.
But Channel 4 insiders say that they may ‘throw all of their money at it’ because Bake Off and Gogglebox are its only programmes that are effectively guaranteed to bring in over one million viewers.
A television source said: ‘Bake Off is one of the biggest shows in television and isn’t just great for ratings, it has huge commercial potential too.
‘There are all manner of opportunities for product placement and sponsorship so while it won’t be cheap to buy it, it could end up being a lucrative buy.’
Love Productions, which makes Bake Off, ditched the BBC back in 2016 after they refused its demands for more money.
Channel 4 swooped in and paid a whopping £25 million for the series. But the move was unpopular with some of the cast – original presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc quit in disgust, as did national treasure Dame Mary Berry, who was a judge. Talks between Love Productions and Channel 4 are believed to have started several weeks ago, with a new three-series deal up for grabs. Netflix has broadcast previous series of Bake Off around the world, but ITV has emerged as the most likely destination if Channel 4 is forced to pull out of talks.
Channel 4 has been rocked by a huge decline in television advertising, with up to 200 jobs said to be at risk at the broadcaster.
But back in 2016 it had been able to pinch Bake Off from the BBC after the corporation’s bosses indicated that financial demands made by Love Productions made the programme ‘unaffordable.’
Aired by Channel 4 in 2021, Bake Off managed 7million viewers, with a record high of 9.2million the year before.
But in 2023, only 4.38 million viewers tuned in to watch the series final.
The show, now judged by Paul Hollywood and Dame Prue, and presented by Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond, launched on the BBC in 2010.