‘Just count the handshakes!'

Paul Hollywood and Dame Prue Leith on having their work cut out judging this year’s bakers...

- CAREN CLARK

THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF

NEW TUESDAY / C4 / 8PM / EP 1 of 10 / COOKERY

Dame Prue Leith has a surprising confession to make as TV Times joins her and Paul Hollywood for a video chat about the 12th series of C4’s The Great British Bake Off.

‘I prefer it when some of the bakers are not so good. It’s much easier to judge if you have a few disasters!’ laughs the cookery doyenne conspiratorially.

It sounds like Dame Prue, who was made a Dame in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June, didn’t quite get her to wish, though. According to Paul, the 12 potential Star Bakers limbering up to impress the ever-exacting judges in the 10-part run have been ‘incredible from the off ’.

The talented dozen will certainly get the chance to prove themselves in the tent of baking dreams this series, hosted once more by Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas, as they face everything from Germanthemed bakes to Free-From Week.

Meanwhile, as Cake Week kicks off proceedings, they whip up yummy-looking mini rolls, a retro classic, and some cakes that defy the laws of physics!

Here, Paul, 55, and Dame Prue, 81, tell us more about the sponge based shenanigans…

What is the standard of baking like this year?

PAUL It’s certainly the highest I’ve ever encountered, and it starts like that and ends like that.

DAME PRUE Just count the handshakes! The youngest baker is 19 and the oldest is 70, and not one baker is like another.