Paul Hollywood on why he was right to stay with Bake Off after all  (2024)

The ovens have been turned off, the tent packed away and the verdicts are in on Channel 4’s first Great British Bake Off.

And what a resounding triumph it seemed to have been, exceeding expectations with healthy ratings, a warm reception for its new line-up and a peak audience of 8.9 million for the final.

Pity poor Prue Leith then, when the new judge inadvertently tweeted the winner’s name before the final aired after getting confused over the time difference between Britain and Bhutan, where she was on holiday.

For Paul Hollywood though, the only member of the original Bake Off team to make the move to Channel 4, it mattered not a jot. ‘It was a genuine mistake,’ he says. ‘And it was such an amazing final.’

Paul took a bit of flak for ‘going with the dough’ when the reported £75 million deal was brokered last year, but he’s unrepentant over that too. ‘I believed in Bake Off,’ he declares. ‘I love Bake Off, and I will never leave.

It’s part of me. I equate it to Doctor Who. It’s a big change, to have the first woman Doctor, but Doctor Who is still Doctor Who. The Doctors change, but Doctor Who is the same. Bake Off is the same. It just regenerates into something a little bit different.

‘Mary, Mel and Sue had their own paths to take,’ he says of the old team. ‘I think the world of all three and wish them all the best. I speak to everyone as much as I used to. It was sad to see them go. I was upset about the whole thing, but ultimately Bake Off is Bake Off. We found three fantastic new people.

'Lots of viewers have told me they love Noel, Sandi and Prue. It’s just a fresh way of looking at something. It’s brought something different out of me. I feel more relaxed. It’s been a real laugh.’

With the tricky first series now out of the way, Paul, 51, will be back on our screens later this month in A Baker’s Life, a biographical four-part series tracing his rise from humble baking beginnings on Merseyside to becoming the nation’s most famous baker bar Mr Kipling. ‘But I live and breathe, he doesn’t,’ says Paul.

The show begins with the childhood bakes that first piqued his interest – his mum Gill’s apple pie included – then covers the time he spent learning his trade in his father John’s bakeries and working in glitzy hotel kitchens at home and abroad, before making his name on TV in that famous white tent.

‘A Baker’s Life is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while,’ he says. ‘People see the image of me on Bake Off as the panto villain and, actually, no one knows me. The series shows how I ended up doing what I’m doing.’

He says that although it’s about his life as a baker, it could be any baker’s life and he hopes it’ll prove inspirational. ‘The number of children who come up to me now and say, “I want to be a baker!” That’s lovely to hear. How many times did I go to parties with very well-educated people – I’m not educated, I’m an idiot – and they’d ask, “What do you do?” I’d say, “I’m a baker...” And they’d say, “Oh...” What they meant was, “Oh, you’re just a baker.”

But for me, baking’s so important. Bakers in France were revered as artisans. Old mayors of Pompeii were bakers. Ironically, in this country, because of things like Bake Off, they’re more respected now. It’s about getting respect for the trade.’

In the show Paul returns to his childhood home in Wallasey on the Wirral, where we immediately see that his mother’s loyalties lie elsewhere. ‘You walk in the front room and it’s like an homage to James Martin,’ laughs Paul, rolling his eyes. There are photos of the chef, a Weekend columnist, dotted all over the place. ‘My mum’s had this big thing for James. It’s quite embarrassing. He stayed over one night in the attic and Mum was in the room below. She still dines out on the fact James slept on top of her... through a bloody ceiling!’ he laughs.

‘She’s got a signed photo of chef Paul Rankin on her wall too. She loves him,’ he chuckles. ‘She loves Brian Turner. She loves Tony Tobin. There aren’t many she doesn’t love in the cheffy world.’ So her favourite TV foodie isn’t her own flesh and blood? ‘No, it’s not,’ he says, ‘it’s James Martin.’

Joking aside, Paul clearly adored re-enacting his earliest baking memories and cooking with his mum again. As a boy there was always a fresh batch of her crispy-yet-chewy ginger biscuits cooling on a rack. ‘Mum’s biscuits were legendary,’ he says. ‘They’d be my desert island bake.

They’re so evocative of my childhood. And they’re delicious.’ So delicious, in fact, that when Paul baked them for Tom Kerridge, a two-Michelin-starred chef, he was so impressed he said he wanted to put them on his menu. ‘Mum’s a useless cook – she’ll say it herself – but she’s a great baker.’

Paul’s been surrounded by baking all his life. ‘My dad had his own chain of 18 bakeries called Breadwinner,’ he says. Paul had the smell of freshly baked bread in his nostrils long before he could walk – wafting upstairs from the bakery below their flat.

The magic of dough was first revealed to him through his dad’s rolls. On Saturday afternoon after work, his father would make baps at home. Young Paul was fascinated to see them rise as they proved under a damp cloth on a tray in front of the fire while the family watched the wrestling on TV.

At the age of 12 he started helping in the shop. ‘I’d clean racks, brush up, clean the loo. I literally started from the bottom,’ he laughs. ‘And I’d jam the doughnuts. You can make a jam bomb with four injections of jam. I’d give it to my mum and say, “Take a bite.” Best thing in the world!’ he says of the resulting explosion. ‘I still do it.’

Even so, he ended up going to Wallasey School of Art, following in the footsteps of his graphic designer mother, who’d studied fine art. ‘I was into Hawkwind, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, had long hair and studied sculpture. Then I thought, “I need to earn money.” I didn’t think there was any in art. You have to be really good. I wasn’t.’

His dad offered him £500 to cut his hair and join the firm. Paul accepted. ‘I was good at baking,’ he says. ‘I don’t know whether it’s because it’s in my blood. Auntie Kath did say my great-great-great-grandad was head baker at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. All my uncles were bakers.

My brother Lee is a baker. We’ve more than eight in the family.’ Paul never worked with his father though. ‘I worked with the people who worked for him,’ he explains. ‘They were great bakers and I enjoyed working for the business, but it was very difficult as I was still my father’s son. That’s why I left to do my own thing.’

At 21 he moved into baking for luxury hotels. He worked at the Chester Grosvenor, The Dorchester in London (at 24 he was its youngest ever head baker) and at Cliveden House in Berkshire, where he often served the Queen Mother afternoon tea. ‘Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman took my blueberry muffins back to America,’ he grins.

Moving to Cyprus changed his life though. He spent six years at the Annabelle Hotel in Paphos teaching Cypriots European-style baking for British tourists.

He rode a superbike, travelled to Jordan, Egypt and Israel learning their baking traditions and met wife-to-be Alex while diving. It’s their 20th anniversary next year. ‘I fell in love with the lifestyle,’ he says. ‘It’s so much slower... and the heat! It was 50°C outside, but the kitchen was excruciatingly hot. I was just in shorts. I had a lovely villa, a pool. Alex and I met and got married. She was a diving instructor. I was a dive master.’ The couple have a 16-year-old son, Josh.

When he returned to Britain in 1999, he began appearing on TV and eventually Bake Off called. Viewers will get a different view of the tent in A Baker’s Life. ‘I bring the cameras in round the back so people, for the first time, will see the views we get and meet the vast crew behind the scenes,’ explains Paul. ‘Noel, Prue, Sandi and I make a cake, too. I love Prue. She’s so funny. And I feel as if I’ve known Sandi for years. She’s so quick, so intelligent.

‘Where Noel and I bonded was over art. I went to art school, so did he. Noel does a lot of art. I’ve started sketching again. And it’s nice to have another bloke in the tent.’ Even if he’s joking that your tan is the same colour as a deep-fried cannoli? Paul laughs. ‘Oh yeah. I take the mickey out of his paleness too, because it’s like he’s dead. He’s the colour of uncooked dough.’

It’s surprising Paul can tell, given that it was only revealed in this series that he’s actually colourblind. So in all these series of Bake Off, has he not been able to see the often garish colours of the icing on the showstopper cakes? ‘It’s only shades of green and some blues,’ he explains. ‘If someone makes something green, I’ll see the same colour but the shade will appear slightly different to me.’

Bake Off’s standard proved higher than ever this year, and winner Sophie Faldo was consistent throughout. ‘Sophie was amazing,’ says Paul. ‘She got better and better. She’s got real tenacity. And the final was the best ever... by a mile. The bakes were incredible. Out of all the winners I look at Sophie and think, “Hmm, she’s very good.” The best ever? ‘I think she could be.’

He even admitted on camera to getting a tear in his eye after she won when he caught Sandi Toksvig crying with emotion, but said he’d got away with it by pretending it was the wind that had made his eye water. That’s a very different side to the gruff Paul Hollywood Mel and Sue used to refer to as the ‘silverback of sourdough’.

After eight series, the show has turned Paul into a household name. But that can come with its downsides too, as he found out to his cost recently when a photo emerged of him wearing a Nazi uniform. At the time he said, ‘I’m absolutely devastated if this caused offence.

The picture was taken 14 years ago en route to a comedy TV shows-themed New Year’s Eve party and a group of us dressed as characters from ’Allo ’Allo! Everyone who knows me knows I’m incredibly proud of the efforts of those, including my grandfather, who fought against the Nazis during the war.’

It didn’t seem to dent his public image though and today, as well as the hit TV shows and bestselling recipe books, he has his own bakeware and baking products ranges while Knead Bakery and Coffee – selling his bakes – has just opened in London’s Euston station.

‘I was just lucky,’ he says. Surely hard work makes your luck? ‘I suppose I was a grafter too. If you’re going to do a job, do it properly.’

A Baker’s Life begins on Channel 4 later this month. The book to accompany the series is out now (Bloomsbury, £26).