Prue Leith: We want imagination and personality but first we want good baking

“It’s just too noisy and too uncomfortable and very hot,” she adds, in an honest critique that will be familiar to viewers of Bake Off. The competition returned for a 10th series last night, with Leith playing the Lionfrom the Wizard of Oz in an opening sketch. It’s about enthusiasm and practice.” It’s a shift from this year’s celebrity Bake Offs for Comic Relief, which featured Russell Brand recreating his daughter’s birth in biscuits, complete with his wife’s vagina. They all come on thinking they’re not competitive so there’s a lot of larking around, thenofcourse they get the Bake Off bug and want to win and it’s funny. “We want imagination and personality but first we want good baking, which means taste, texture and looks.” She tries to only eat “a tiny bit” of each cake. “Of course not.” She’d like Boris Johnson to come on Bake Off — they met for breakfast last week to discuss Leith’s new role reviewing NHS food. The approach of the Prime Minister and Health Secretary has impressed her: “It is my first time in years that I’ve felt any traction at the top of the tree. This Cabinet sees improving hospital food as a way to save money and make a healthier, happier nation. That’s fine but what you must do is move the kitchens near the hospital so if you miss a meal because you are having treatment someone can cook you food and you don’t have to get whatever is in the vending machine.