Liam: ‘My first cupcakes were luminous & tasted awful!’

Introducing heat’s new cookery columnist, Bake Off ’s Liam Charles

As he left the Bake Off tent the week before the semi-final and almost broke the internet (sorry, Kim), he declared this wasn’t the last we had seen of 19-year-old Liam Charles – and he’d be back to step into Paul Hollywood’s shiny slip-on shoes. Well, less than a year later, the student from Hackney, east London, has almost done just that, bagging himself a presenting role on spin-off show Bake Off: The

Professionals, alongside comic Tom Allen. When he’s not fitting filming in-between his studies (he’s doing a drama degree at Goldsmiths), he’s hanging out with the likes of Jade Thirlwall from Little Mix and Naasty B. And now he’s joining the heat team to bring you his trademark gooey recipes with some epic flavour combinations. We. Can’t. Wait. To whet your appetite this week, he’s whipped up some cakes that will ensure you’re Star Baker. Did you go on Bake

Off intending to become a presenter? Honestly, I didn’t know what would happen after the show. I was just taking everything as it came. I definitely knew I was coming for Paul Hollywood’s job, but I didn’t know it would happen so fast [Laughs]. Are you picking up loads of pro tips from the bakers on the show? I look at baking very differently now. I used to just do circular layer cakes, but now I’ve got the courage to break the rules a bit more. I’ve started making more rectangular cakes and, although I felt my flavour profile before was pretty good, now it’s more experimental. You’ve been asking your Instagram followers to suggest some weird flavour combinations. Which have been the strangest?