Nadiya is brilliant at cooking and I can’t even boil an egg... it did make me think need to be a better woman

roles are the reverse. She is nervous ut presenting, but says her strength nowing exactly what contestants are ng through. was behind one of these workches,” she says. “When they say, ‘Can do a three-tiered cheesecake in three rs?’… I know that dread.” adiya, who has sons Musa, 11, wud 10, and daughter Maryam, seven, h husband Abdal, says she overcomes presenting nerves by recalling her dhood games, when she played at ng a TV cook. “I used to pretend to my brothers and sisters and they’d get fed up,” she says.

“So I’d have teddy bears and pillows – I’d draw faces on pillows, and then pretend to cook.

“Now when I’m a bit nervous I just pretend everyone’s a teddy or a pillow.”

While the show starts in the same month as Channel 4’s Bake Off, the pair refuse to see it as a rival. Zoe is pals with Bake Off hosts Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig and a fan of judge Prue Leith, who joins Paul Hollywood.

“I’ll be watching Noel and Sandi because I absolutely love them,” Zoe says. “And Prue Leith – my brother always says she wrote the best cookbook ever. There’s room for all of us.”

“Absolutely,” adds Nadiya. “We’re not Bake Off because it’s not baking, it’s all cooking. There’s different dynamics, it’s three people – and it’s in a barn.”

Zoe adds: “Obviously comparisons will be made because two women are hosting. But we’re never going to be as funny as Mel and Sue.

“We have different humour – mostly unbroadcastable.” Nadiya is particularly thrilled that none of the families in the series have gone for the fad for “clean” eating, involving cutting out major food groups.

She says: “There’s too much emphasis on what we shouldn’t eat. There’s nothing wrong with a fish finger.

“Would I give my children fish fingers seven days a week?

“Absolutely not. But it’s about having a healthy attitude to food, that’s more important than what you put on the plate. What’s wrong with having a bit of chocolate cake? Chocolate cake is good for you, it makes you happy.”

Judge Rosemary, meanwhile, says the “surprisingly high” standard of cooking on the show means she piled on the pounds.

She had dropped three dress sizes – on a diet based on prunes – after being told she was morbidly obese while making Indian documentary The Real Marigold Hotel.

But she says: “I put it back on again, it’s a bit of a nightmare. But, you know, it’s been worth it.”

So how does she feel about being seen as “the new Mary Berry”? Rosemary laughs. “I’d never fill Mary’s shoes – I think she’s a terrific person.”

It looks like Zoe once again has a top recipe on this one – all sweetness and spice, and not a hint of bitterness.

The Big Family Cooking Showdown, BBC2, 8pm, Tuesday August 15

Show co-hosts Nadiya and Zoe

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