‘WE HAVE TO SORT THE SHEEP FROM THE GOATS’

The Great British Bake Off star Prue Leith admits she’s finding it tougher and tougher to judge the hit competition because the standard has got so high. Prue, 82, who joined the show when it moved to C4, also reveals ambition can destroy a baker’s chances of winning. She explains, ‘[The bakers] watch each other. They know how high the standard is and they all know you can learn a lot of techniques on Youtube. Even if you haven’t had a cookery lesson in your life, you can give yourself one. As the bakers have got better, the challenges have got harder because we need them to be difficult enough for a few to fail! Can you imagine how difficult it is to judge 12 perfectly identical somethings? It’s impossible, so we need to have something that sorts the sheep from the goats.’

Going on to reflect why some contestants don’t do very well, she adds, ‘What you learn early on is how ambitious they are and how much they want to cram in – often that’s a mistake. What they can do at home in four hours, they probably won’t be able to do in the tent. It’s a different environment. I’m always on the watchout for people who are overambitious.’

Impressed by some of the bakers’ talent, Prue, who lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, John, admits she does sometimes ask for a recipe from contestants. She says, ‘Often, there’ll be something that stands out for me and I’ll ask the baker for the recipe.’