The Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood is describing his ultimate fantasy. It’s not to create the tangiest sourdough or the most melting brioche but, it transpires, to fly his own helicopter — even if it is for bake-related reasons.
“I’m sick of traffic jams,” he says with a sigh, eyes like blue marbles glazing over dreamily, native Wirral accent as thick as room-temperature butter. “I’ve been in them most of my life. I’d like to be able to use a helicopter for pleasure trips, to go over to France for a croissant. I haven’t done that yet but I will.”
Hollywood is turning 60 next year and is already renowned for his passion for motorbikes, motor racing and flying lessons. Is he in the throes of a midlife crisis? “I’ve been in a perpetual midlife crisis since I was 17,” he says, grinning. “Ask my mates. Now I can afford bigger toys but nothing’s changed. Next year I might join a band.”
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When he left art school at 17 for a traineeship at his father’s 12-strong Breadwinner chain of bakeries, all these boy’s own pastimes seemed an impossible dream. “I never thought that I’d be doing what I’m doing now,” he says. “When I go back to Liverpool I still see some of the lads I used to work with in the bakery and they’re all very proud, but in a weird way I feel slightly guilty. It’s probably impostor syndrome but I find it difficult. I went on to do what I did when some of these guys are still doing the same job. I’ve done all that racing car crap but those guys have always kept me grounded.”
How does he feel about entering his seventh decade? “Other birthdays I’ve never cared about … 40, 50. But 60 sounds old, you’re nearly drawing your pension, it’s the beginning of the end. I asked some guys on the Bake Off crew what being 60 was like and they said ‘hell’.” He and his second wife of three years, the former pub landlady Melissa Spalding, normally go abroad for his birthday. “But next year I might have a party at home — it’ll be for my family, not for me. Still, as long as I’m having a good laugh and I’m healthy …”
In fact Hollywood seems on top form. He’s sitting in the café of the Big Cat Sanctuary in Smarden, Kent, which rescues and breeds endangered species of wild cats from around the world, including several rescued from Kyiv Zoo at the start of the Ukraine war. He talks against the background of a huge lioness stretching in the sun on the other side of the plate-glass window behind him. He seems equally relaxed, his famously silver hair set off by a deep tan, his waistline — a constant source of angst to all Bake Off judges — only slightly out of control.
He’s been on our screens for 15 years. “I’ve grown up with Bake Off. Someone recently was talking about watching me in the first episode. They said, ‘Those mad shirts you used to have!’ My hair was much darker. I’ve just turned into Father Christmas, getting fatter and whiter. But that’s cool.”
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He’s spoken about fame bestowing great perks but also turning him into a “hermit” who rarely leaves his home, a four-bedroom farmhouse surrounded by eight acres of land in a neighbouring village, such is his dread of paparazzi. As we talk, people in the café are blatantly filming him on their phones. Hollywood never foresaw this when, as a successful but obscure baker, he joined a BBC show about piping bags. “None of us thought it would work.”
Yet Bake Off quickly attracted 13 million viewers, making everyone involved rich and famous. The glitter came off three years in, when it was revealed that Hollywood had had an affair with a fellow judge in The American Baking Competition. A brief reconciliation with his wife Alex, mother of their son, Josh, now 23, followed but in 2017 they divorced acrimoniously.
That same year he received more opprobrium for sticking with Bake Off when it moved from the BBC to Channel 4. His fellow judge Mary Berry and the presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc quit in protest, a gesture that in hindsight, given the show stuck to its format, seems an overreaction.
“We’ve done more years now with Channel 4 than with the BBC,” he points out. He’s spent them judging alongside Prue Leith and the show has become — again, unexpectedly — huge in the US, where it’s shown on Netflix the day after the UK broadcast. “It’s weird because when I talk to Americans I’ll be waxing lyrically about my relationship with Mary and they don’t know her, they’re like, ‘Mary who?’”
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Hollywood has previously spoken of how his American fame has put him on texting terms with Hollywood royalty including Hugh Jackman, Michael J Fox and Kylie Jenner. Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, are especially close pals. “Blake and Ryan love watching Bake Off. Ryan and Hugh did some YouTube clip where Ryan said it was like serotonin and it got them through lockdown. It’s in the popular culture over there. In Deadpool 3 the big silver superhero says, ‘I watch Bake Off.’ I was like, ‘What?’ It was very strange. I think Americans love the nostalgia of it all and that it’s a peaceful show. The judging’s not particularly harsh and lots of American shows are all about what they call the three-second shot, changing the focus every three seconds, whereas Bake Off will spend 15 seconds just looking at a piece of cake and then the blinky, blinky music comes in. It relaxes you.”
Hollywood now spends early summer here, judging Bake Off (he’s just seen the brief of this year’s contestants but will only say gnomically, “They should be good”), before heading to America to film The Great American Baking Show. How are the American contestants? “Louder. They’re out there. There’s a lot of clapping and cheering, which you don’t normally get in the tent. Everything’s a bit more subdued in the UK but the American version’s fun, it creates a different atmosphere.”
Leith, the former restaurateur and founder of the renowned cookery school, is beside him for both shows. The pair are genuinely great friends, with Leith admitting that she often calls her husband “Paul” by mistake.“I was round at Prue’s a couple of months ago. I thought I’d be entertained and dined but I ended up cooking,” Hollywood says. “We did this double-handed thing, squeezing a chicken into an air fryer she’d just got. She had two pairs of glasses on and was staring at the machine — ‘Paul, help me!’ Actually, it worked really well. I suppose the last person who wants to plumb in their own house is the plumber.”
Is Hollywood saying he doesn’t bake for his loved ones? He has, after all, just published his latest cookbook, Celebrate: Joyful Baking All Round, featuring such goodies as cherry marble traybake and elderflower cupcakes, which he describes as bakes “to celebrate the important events and people in your life”. “I bake bread about three times a week because a lot of supermarket bread is like cardboard, it has no flavour.” Does he ever have a slice of Hovis? “Hovis, no. I don’t mind Warburtons for a bacon butty because I like the super-thin loaves where you can push your hand down. People just need to be aware of what they’re eating.”
How about his fancier confections? “That happens maybe once every couple of months. I made Danish pastries recently because there’s not a lot of shops nearby and I prefer to make them myself. I used to make thousands a day.” After some reflection he recalls making a huge meringue nest for a party. When? “A couple of years ago.”
As the world’s worst baker I’d been delighted but surprised to see that Hollywood, while providing recipes for puff pastry and an easier “cheats puff pastry”, also decrees “good-quality ready-made acceptable” for some recipes.
“What pastry are you talking about?” Hollywood demands. “Filo is the only time I give permission to buy … life’s too short to make your own filo.” He seems unaware that several of his recipes — for example, the miso and sesame cheese twists — include this get-out clause. “I guarantee you’d know the difference between home-made and ready-made. But if people really want to make something quick, use the shop-bought, I don’t care. But once you’ve made puff pastry, you’ll remember, muscle memory will tell you.”
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When I interviewed the former Bake Off host Sandi Toksvig last year she said her three years hosting the show before quitting “were the longest of my life”, adding: “I didn’t understand it. Cakes are readily available in shops.” Hollywood laughs raucously on hearing this. “OK! But Bake Off’s not boring. I think it’s because most of the time Sandi’s writing books and stuff, she embeds herself in that knowledge stuff. But if you’re open to accepting what goes on in the tent … I don’t learn from the bakers but I enjoy watching them because you can see they’re learning. The ones that go on the biggest journey tend to win. That one who won a couple of years ago — what was his name, Matthew [the PE teacher Matty Edgell]? I would never have picked him to win. He came from nowhere the last day because the favourite collapses with pressure.”
Never was that truer than last year when the runaway favourite, 20-year-old Dylan Bachelet, struggled in the final, particularly with his showstopper. “I thought, ‘He’s going to do well.’ But he just fell off a cliff. That’s not unusual. It’s like a final at Wembley — you can get a third division beating a Premiership side, it all depends on who turns up on the day. Dylan reminded me of myself in many ways, in terms of his professionalism. He was a good kid and really talented.” Are they in touch? “No, but I know he’s working in a Michelin-starred restaurant. He’ll do well in that environment. He was a great-looking kid as well, he came in with his hair done like a samurai, I said, ‘Bloody hell, Dylan, you look amazing!’” He looks like a young Johnny Depp. “I agree. [Co-host] Noel [Fielding] and I thought he was brilliant, we were big fans of his.”
We return to Hollywood’s quiet domestic life. He likes to stay at home with Spalding and their two British shorthair and two Maine coon cats, one of which weighs nine kilos. “She got run over last year. [Supervet] Noel Fitzpatrick saved her life. Her tail’s a bit wonky but she’s fine.” He keeps fit by playing table tennis “with a couple of mates in the village”. He used to cycle but quit because he was hassled too much by paparazzi, “who wanted a shot of me in Lycra. But I go for three, four-mile walks a lot with Melissa. If they try to follow us, I disappear across a field.”
Paul Hollywood’s perfect weekend
Lie-in or workout?
Lie-in
Handshake or hug?
Handshake!
Baps or buns?
That’s a regional thing — I’d go bap
Prue or Mary?
No answer, that’s not fair. I love them both
Alison or Noel?
Stop it. That’s like choosing your favourite child. Alison’s added fizz to what was already a great bottle of water and Noel’s like my brother: he’s a kind soul and great with the bakers
Green juice or Guinness?
Green juice
Signature dish
Risotto with whatever’s in the fridge. Not a bake
Last thing you googled
I wanted to find out more about the new American Pope
Couldn’t get through the weekend without … a motorbike ride
Celebrate by Paul Hollywood (Bloomsbury £26). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members.
