Leith: Bake Off would be icing on the cake for me
PRUE LEITH has said she is “close” to landing her “dream job” of replacing Mary Berry on the Great British Bake Off after reports suggested she was the frontrunner to become a judge when the show moves to Channel 4.
The cookery guru, five years younger than Berry at 76, said she had had two auditions and lots of meetings about joining the programme, but had not yet been told she had made the grade.
She believes there is “one other” person in the running to land the role alongside Paul Hollywood, who is the only remaining member of the original BBC line-up to stay with the show after Berry and hosts Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc opted not to go to Channel 4.
Leith’s appointment could mean that the Bake Off’s famed pain stakingly-crafted showstoppers become a thing of the past, as the restaurateur and cookery writer has previously voiced her disapproval for elaborately presented dishes.
She once berated “clever” chefs who can “weave the Eiffel Tower out of carrot sticks”, saying in an interview with The Daily Telegraph: “I think they lose the plot sometimes.”
“There’s too much fussing about,” she said in an interview last month. “I don’t want a plate of food where every single mouthful has been handled and manipulated and squished and gelled and whisked. The best food looks like
it’s just landed on the plate.” In recent series, creations have begun to resemble feats of engineering more than they do baked goods. Competitors have produced a biscuit windmill, a lion made from bread and even a machine made from pies that turned like cogs.
Reports have suggested programme bosses view Leith as a “like for like” replacement for Berry.
But asked yesterday whether congratulations were in order, she said: “Do you know, I don’t know. Presumably. I mean I’m certainly one of the runners. I can wish. I can dream.”
Speaking while at A Very Special Afternoon Tea event to help people suf- fering from dementia, she said: “I’ve had two auditions with them and lots of meetings. So I mean I think I’m close but I know there are two people in the running. One other person. Of course I’d love to do it. Who wouldn’t want to do it?” She added: “I’ve known Mary for years and she loved it.”
Leith is famed for her cookery school, which she founded in 1975, and for running a Michelin-starred restaurant.
At the same dementia event, Monty Python star Terry Jones revealed that he can no longer write as a result of the advance of his primary progressive aphasia. News that the 75-year-old had been diagnosed with the condition was announced last year.