Paul Hollywood’s recipe for success

PAUL HOLLYWOOD is stripping off his leathers as he settles down to discuss the forthcoming sixth series of The Great British Bake Off.

“They didn’t bond like some of the other groups did right from the beginning, but from week three or four they did,” Hollywood says of the contestants. “They were so into their work and very professional in the way they attacked everything. Even coming down to the final, it’s going to be a real game changer.”

Fans of the cosy baking series will be familiar with the way the 49-year-old can reduce contestants to jelly-like jitters when he and fellow judge Mary Berry assess their efforts.

Despite the steely glares and his tough judging style though, Hollywood isn’t without a sense of humour about himself. “My sense of humour’s good,” notes the master baker, who lives in Kent with his cookery author wife Alex and their teenage son Joshua.

Now in its sixth year, the show also has a string of famous fans. “Keira Knightley said when she found out the final was on the same night as her premiere, she didn’t want to go to it,” adds Hollywood.

All seems rosy on the work and home front now, but Hollywood had a rocky time when news of his affair with Marcela Valladolid — his co-star on the short-lived US version of Bake Off — broke in 2013.

While the Hollywoods reunited after a few months and the negative attention died down shortly afterwards, the level of interest in the famous baker’s life remains.

“People will come up and say, ’Can you judge that?’,” he reveals, joking that he tends to get “nervous” whenever he sets foot in a bakery. “I get that in petrol stations, in pubs. I try not to go to supermarkets now.”

A self-confessed adrenaline junkie, he has just wrapped on a “top secret” BBC project which will come out later this year.

Hollywood is 50 next March, and he wants to do something special for fellow judge Berry’s next milestone birthday, in nine-and-a-half years’ time. “Mary sat on one of my bikes last year, but she hasn’t been for a ride on it,” he says.

“She did say she’d go on the back of one of them, so maybe that’s one for the future... Maybe for her 90th, I’ll stick her on the back!”

Hollywood was back on the road recently to discover more about his roots for an episode of BBC One’s Who Do You Think You Are? dedicated to the baker.

One of three boys, Hollywood’s parents divorced when he was 10, and he, his mum and brothers went to live with his maternal grandparents.

Travelling to Tunisia, Italy and Scotland for the genealogy series, he discovers more about his granddad Norman, who served as anti-aircraft gunner during World War Two.

“It was emotional,” says Hollywood, who went to art college and had ambitions to become a sculptor before following in his baker dad’s footsteps. “I did break down in Anzio, Italy, because it touched a nerve with me. My granddad had post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Although he hasn’t thought about how he’d like to be remembered by his descendants, he does have one wish for future Hollywoods.

“If I get them baking, I’ve done my job,” he concludes with a laugh.

The Great British Bake Off returns to BBC One on Wednesday, August 5. Paul Hollywood’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? airs on BBC One on Thursday, August 13