Great British Bake Off winner Candice Brown reveals she’s NOT engaged and opens up about dealing with online trolls
The baker also talks keeping in contact with Mary Berry and launching a lipstick range
WITH her sassy pout and mean meringue-topped creations, no other Great British Bake Off contestant divided the nation like Candice Brown.
From her gingerbread biscuit pub showstopper to her array of on-trend lip shades (we particularly liked the deep plum), Candice, 32, set social media alight every week with viewers either declaring her the “queen of baking” or blasting her “irritating smugness” and “trout pout”.
And the drama wasn’t just reserved for inside the GBBO tent.
In fact, Candice’s personal life garnered almost as many headlines as her culinary craftsmanship, as it was revealed that her tree-surgeon boyfriend Liam Macaulay, now 31, had served 16 months in jail for dealing cannabis before they met.
Since beating off stiff competition from Jane Beedle and Andrew Smyth to take the show’s top spot in last October’s nail-biting final – which drew an audience of almost 15 million, the BBC show’s highest ever – she hasn’t looked back.
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Candice quit her job as a PE teacher at Ashlyns School in Berkhamsted in November, and has become a regular guest on ITV’s Loose Women and This Morning.
Her first cookbook is due to be released this summer.
Yet despite all the furore, Candice is surprisingly softly spoken and polite behind the scenes of her first Fabulous photo shoot.
So with a career rising faster than a perfectly whipped-up soufflé, what’s next for GBBO’s most controversial winner?
Were you surprised by the public’s love/hate reaction to you on GBBO?
A lot of people were lovely, but there were some really mean comments, too.
I guess you get that in every walk of life, but I don’t have it in me to be mean.
I’m not that sort of person, so I don’t understand it.
I’d often think: “I’m just baking a cake, why are you saying these sorts of things about me?” It was hard, but I was brought up in a pub so there was nothing I hadn’t heard before.
Has 2015’s winner Nadiya Hussain, 32, given you any advice?
Yes, she called to congratulate me and told me to enjoy every second.
She was really sweet.
It’s great because everyone who’s been on the show is part of this little Bake Off family and they’re all so supportive.
Was your boyfriend Liam encouraging while you were doing the show?
Definitely.
After I found out I was going on, he said: “We have to put everything we’ve got into this, all the time, money and energy we have.”
He wanted me to do as well as I could.
When I was practising new recipes at home, I created a whirlwind-style mess!
Then while I was frantically scrawling the recipe down afterwards, Liam would clean the entire kitchen.
He was amazing.
There have been lots of rumours you’re engaged…
We’re not! I wear a ring on my engagement finger purely because I enjoy wearing lots of vintage jewellery.
So Mary Berry won’t be baking your wedding cake any time soon?
[Laughs] No! It’s one of those weird ones, because we know we will get married one day, but there’s no pressure for it to happen soon.
We get on brilliantly and Liam’s definitely the one for me.
We first met in a pub – the old-fashioned way!
I was trying to catch his attention and he probably thought I was nuts because I was waving at him.
We’ve got a pug called Dennis together and that’s a huge commitment.
Are you still in touch with Mary?
Yes, I saw Mary a little while ago.
She’s a one-woman machine!
She puts us all to shame with how talented she is and the amount of work she does.
What do you think about Channel 4 poaching GBBO from BBC1, and the new line-up of Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood, Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding?
At the end of the day, it will still be Bake Off, so it will be amazing.
I don’t think the move will change the show too much, and Prue will be an amazing judge with Paul.
I can’t wait to watch it.
Was it scary quitting your day job as a PE teacher?
I was petrified to leave, but hopefully it was the right decision.
I wanted to stay, but I was working in the special needs department, which is very challenging.
I couldn’t juggle everything at once.
How do you stay in shape when you are surrounded by cakes all day?
I’m all about having everything in moderation.
For lunch I’ll eat brown rice with spinach and fish.
When I’m out and about, I’ll sit down for a coffee and a slice of cake – I call it research!
I’m a bit rough around the edges, so for dinner I don’t enjoy finessing little tiny dishes.
I like a big hearty shepherd’s pie with lots of meat and potatoes.
Yum! Where do you get ideas for new recipes?
I’m annoying because I’m always picking cakes and pastries apart, looking at how they’ve been cooked and how I can replicate them.
I also inspect cocktail menus and watch cooking shows to see what new flavours go together.
I could watch those shows all day long.
You’ve been to a few star-studded events recently, including the National Television Awards in January, do you ever get star-struck?
All the time!
I will be chatting away to someone and then I’ll see a celeb and I get distracted.
I saw Sir Chris Hoy at the NTAs and I was like: “What do I do? Do I go and introduce myself?”
I must have looked so stupid because I kept walking over to him then panicking and running back to Liam.
It’s weird being at those events, because I don’t feel like anyone really knows who I am.
I’m still getting my head around it.
What’s next on the agenda career-wise for you?
I’d love to bring out my own lipstick range, as everyone always asks me which colours I’m wearing.
I’ve just filmed a series of cooking videos for NOW TV and I’d like to do more baking shows.
It’s been the craziest year, but I feel so lucky to be in this position.
It still blows my mind that people want to watch me bake on TV because it’s just plain old me. It’s mad!
Visit for Candice’s hot cross bun recipes, inspired by NOW TV’s best-loved characters.