You’re part of an all-new line-up of judges. Did you feel any pressure coming into this series?
A little, but it was like the first day of school, where everybody is new and you’re super-excited. The show has such a reputation and is renowned around the world, so I was nervous but also excited more than feeling the pressure because there were all these new bakers to discover. It also helped that I had Darren [Purchese], Natalie [Tran] and Kiwi Cal [Wilson] alongside me, who are also all new to the show.
Are you a big fan of the series – the Kiwi, Aussie and UK versions?
Yes, of course! I’ve also seen the Swedish version. It’s really fun to see the different versions and different personalities, but at the core, baking is the passion of everyone on the show. Obviously, Bake Off is a world-renowned franchise and such a fun show.
What do you think the Aussie version does better?
What I love about each different version is they each bring their culture into the show. And on the Australian version, we have the amazing, iconic shed! On my first day filming, I saw a kookaburra and blue-tongue lizards, and we had a visiting magpie!
Who would you say is Aussie’s version of British superstar Paul Hollywood?
No one. We are all unique in terms of being judges and we bring our own kind of style and experience. Darren has this amazing technical background, and we’d get all geeky about different styles of baking, sugars and temperatures, even off camera. We both absolutely love, love, love baking.
What were you hoping not to see?
I know you often hear about soggy bottoms, but for me, it was the fact that I’m not that fond of overly sweet cakes. I think what people don’t understand about baking is that you don’t have to add a lot of sugar to push the flavour. You can actually be really clever with developing flavour through different spices and fruits.
The Great Australian Bake Off screens 7.30pm Thursdays on TVNZ 1.
