Interview with Carol Vorderman

7 April 2020

Can you bake? Rate yourself out of 10.

I can bake. Not up to the standards of some, as I’m sure you will see, but I used to bake at school. I grew up in Wales, and we’d have the school Eisteddfod, and I would win the baking year after year. I always enjoyed baking, and now I’m at a stage in my life where I only do things I enjoy. Anything that I don’t like, I don’t do it.  I’ve kind of gone off cooking generally as I have had to do it for a family since I was 10 and I do other things I guess.

Who taught you how to bake?

A nun called Sister Barbara. My mum couldn’t cook, so it was Sister Barbara.

How did Sister Barbara end up in your life?

She was the cookery teacher at school. I went to a Catholic comp in North Wales and got a grade A in Cookery back in the 1970s.

Do you have a signature dish?

Not at all, no. I used to bake when my daughter was little. So I baked when I was at school, then not at all in my 20s, then when I had Katie we baked. It’s a way of teaching maths as well. She was very young when we started, and she’s a brilliant baker now, and a brilliant cook in general. Once she left, I didn’t really have any reason to bake. So all those hours – and anyone who has children understands this – when you’re doing the school run and packed lunches and pick up and all of that – now I get to do what I like doing. It’s the best time in my life! It’s bliss, I love it!

Are you a Bake Off fan?

I am! I watched the first two series, because Katie was at home. Now I catch it whenever I can, but I don’t always get a chance. I don’t watch much telly at all. I’m even thinking about taking the Internet out of the house. It would be the best thing. What do I use it for? A bit of emailing. What about the rest of it?

Is the show something you’ve been nervous about doing?

No. Just because of the spirit behind it. You’re doing it in the spirit that it’s meant. If it was a flying competition, I’d be quite competitive, but this is just so much fun. The lads are hilarious, and Kelly is brilliant! And I’m happily bumbling along doing my own thing. But I’ll tell you what’s really lovely about it, it’s bringing back all those things about when I used to bake with Katie, and all those moments of being a young mum. That’s lovely. So that’s why the judging and stuff doesn’t matter to me. I can just picture Katie’s little hands when we used to bake. She’s now a research scientist working on cancer drug delivery using nanotechnology in Cambridge.

Who do you want to impress the most? Paul or Prue?

Noel! I LOVE Noel. He genuinely has no idea about baking. Sandi and I have had a good chat. We’re both Cambridge graduates of the same generation. On one side of her family there are a lot of engineers, and I read engineering. Being the same generation, we have an understanding of how things have changed. We started talking about how we started out. My mum wrote this letter, because she saw an advert in the Yorkshire Evening Post about this new channel starting, and about Countdown, and how they were looking for someone who was good at maths. And so my Mum wrote the letter and forged my signature. And Sandi had a similar tale! We were talking about all the jobs we had before we started. And she saw this advert for Number 73, and that was her first TV job.

Who do you see as your biggest competition?

I think Kelly is going to be really good. She’s so lovely, I’ve known Kelly a while. But this doesn’t feel like a competition, it’s just too much fun for that. Rob is hilarious, and Mo is hilarious. Rob is standing behind me, and he keeps saying I’m going to turn him straight.

I’m not sure that’s going to happen…

I think you’re right and I’m not holding out much hope!  But I do adore him.

Have you had any baking disasters?

Oh, millions. And I’m sure I will in the tent. Part of the problem is, I don’t really eat cake. Fish I can do, and I’m very good at a salad!

What’s your strength in your baking?

I really don’t want to claim that I have strengths is any way. I’m enthusiastic, let’s go with that. And the greatest joy in life is to have enthusiasm.

Why are you supporting Stand Up to Cancer?

Most of us have been affected by cancer one way or another. I’m here to celebrate the research that has been done. I can remember when I was young in the 1970s in Wales, a lady a few doors away died from cancer, and nobody would talk about it. Not because it was a shameful thing, but because it was a death sentence. Now it doesn’t have to be. My mum got her first cancer nearly 20 years before she died. She had ovarian, then she had kidney cancer – not a secondary cancer – and then she had melanoma. They were all primaries. But the research gave her 20 more years, and gave me 20 more years with my mum. Had that happened 30 years earlier, she wouldn’t have had those two decades. So I want to celebrate what has been done. And now my daughter Katie is working in this field, and I’m celebrating what she’s doing. The work that she’s involved with might well lead to other people living longer.

Have you practised your bakes for today? How did they go?

I did one practice. I’d never make a Welsh Cake before. I decided to do that as my signature dish because Wales is important to me. I grew up there, my mum’s Welsh, my father was Dutch. And in the last year or so I’ve been working a lot back in Wales, and I can only describe it as falling in love with my country. It makes me cry with joy and laughter. I’m re-learning Welsh, and I’m going to live in Wales. I love it, and I think I understand it more as a grown up. The Welsh have the biggest softest hearts and love laughing, which I guess is exactly what I do too.  So I practised my Welsh Cakes.

A lot of baking is about calculating amounts and ratios…

Yes! I love all of that!

Do you think your facility with numbers gives you an advantage?

Not remotely! No, not at all, sadly!