Baked focaccia is heaven on a plate

LAST YEAR’S BAKE OFF WINNER GIUSEPPE DELL’ANNO TALKS TO PRUDENCE WADE ABOUT LEARNING FROM HIS FATHER AND PREFERRING SAVOURY TO SWEET

DESPITE whipping up an admirable array of cakes, cookies and pastries while winning last year’s series of The Great British Bake Off, Giuseppe Dell’anno doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth.

“I don’t usually get cravings for sweet bakes,” the 46-year-old admits. Instead, he’s all about the savoury treats. “Very few things give me as much pleasure as the smell of baked savoury goods, like a warm loaf of bread, or some warm focaccia. Baked focaccia, that to me is heaven on a plate.”

The Italian baker – who is now based in Bristol – has written his first cookbook, dedicating it to the bakes of his homeland. He might not have a sweet tooth, but he still says: “I enjoy the process of baking – and most crucially, the joy of sharing the baked goods with others, more than stuffing my face.

“I don’t dislike a nice lump of cake – in the process of writing that book, I put on 13 kilos in less than a year... I’ve literally ‘proved’!”

Many of the recipes in the book are ones Giuseppe ate growing up, made for him by his father.

“My dad was a professional chef and baker by passion. He’s always done it with a passion – for him, it’s never been work – and he didn’t stop at work.

“Before leaving the house in the morning, he would prepare lunch for everybody, then he would go to work, cook and bake the whole day, then come back and do the same for family and friends. It’s been his life effectively, since he started working in his early teens.”

But Giuseppe wasn’t helping his dad in the kitchen from a young age. “Funnily enough, having all of that readily served to me, I never needed to learn how to bake – because I was surrounded by all that stuff every single day,” he confesses.

“It’s only when I left home at 18 and I realised it was not the same for everybody, that I’d been very lucky to have all of that – then I started to learn things myself.”

While Giuseppe’s father didn’t teach him, he says: “Observing him doing things over and over again had given me that sixth sense that you need to work out how things are done.”

Despite already being an excellent home baker, Giuseppe – who worked as an engineer before winning Bake Off on Channel 4 – is quick to stress just how much he learned from the show.

“Regardless of how good a home baker you are, home bakers usually have their own skills, they’re good at a few things, but they’re not good at everything.

“Whereas on the show, you’ve got to do pretty much everything – from ice cream to fried goods to yeasted baked cakes to mousses, and many elaborate things.”

Giuseppe won legions of fans from his time on Bake Off thanks to his friendly demeanour, but he was nervous about how the public would react to him.

“I’m a very insecure man, very insecure,” he says. “I was terrified at the idea that I was going to be putting myself on the TV screen, because acceptance for insecure people is always a big thing.

“I literally lost sleep over the idea that I might not get accepted – I might get trolled on Twitter, like has happened to other bakers in the past – that my features would be picked on and my accent – all these things start to grow in your head.

“And none of that happened. Nothing of what I was fearing most happened – quite the opposite actually. It has changed me ... having gone through that validation process on an epic scale, on such a big, high-profile show.”

Giuseppe accepts he was extremely “privileged” to have this experience, saying: “I wish there was a way for all insecure people to have this sort of therapy – for me, it’s been a massive form of therapy, going on Bake Off.”