2019's Great British Bake Off winner David Atherton shares his culinary recollections with Ella Walker.
We're still watching this year's batch of Great British Bake Off contestants staring into the depths of their ovens, while trying not to burn caramel.
It must be a little bit of relief, at least, for 2019 winner David Atherton - even for someone who might just be the calmest champion in Bake Off history, the feted tent can be a tough place to be.
The Whitby-born health professional has been busy since becoming the ultimate star baker, writing his debut cookbook for children, My First Cook Book: Make, Bake & Learn To Cook, illustrated by is friend Rachel Stubbs.
We caught up with Atherton, 37, about his food memories...
Atherton's earliest memory of food is...
"It probably is baking bread. Cutting off bits of dough and thinking I'm making a rabbit, when actually, by the time it's risen and come out of the oven, you can't tell the difference between the other bread buns."
The first time he cooked for people and felt that rush of pride, was...
"I remember making a lasagne and thinking it was the most technical thing ever, and I made it for my family and was very, very proud of it. It was before I was a teenager, so I was probably like 11 or 12. I remember because I remember wearing a bow-tie to serve it as well, as if I was a waiter."
His worst food disaster is...
"It sounds really silly but it still scars me. I went to get a thing of icing sugar but I dropped it; it went over everything in the kitchen, it genuinely took days to actually clean it because still like two days later, it would still be sticky. That annoyed me the most.
"But in terms of food, it's probably that I don't really like timers. I have a thing where I claim I just know when things are ready, and I go out to the shops and come back and things are totally burnt. I'm much better at cooking than baking. Like on Bake Off, I was terrible at setting timers. I think I was just lucky."
And his culinary high has to be...
"Winning Bake Off. That final showstopper as well, because when we got the brief for that, we were just like, 'Whoa, this is actually impossible' [They had to make an 'illusion picnic basket feast']. And then, when I look back now. I kind of seem to make it look easy, even though it didn't seem easy at the time."
My First Cook Book: Make, Bake & Learn To Cook is written by David Atherton and illustrated by Rachel Stubbs, priced £14.99
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