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Hilary Barry dons a tiara to show us how to make scones and we love it!

Has Hilary become our new Mother of the Nation?
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It’s not always easy to keep your spirits up in a crisis. But if there’s one person we can rely on to put a smile on our face during lockdown, we’re quickly learning it’s Hilary Barry.

On Wednesday she delighted us by dressing up in a ball gown for her first day working from home.

“Working from home?” she asked us on Instagram. “How about making a bloody effort on today’s video call instead of sitting there in your pj’s.”

Today, wearing a tiara (and a different ballgown), she has brought us a lesson from her Facebook page on how to whip up scones and froth milk for your coffee.

The Seven Sharp presenter shares with us a special trick on how to produce the perfect batch of scones by opening the oven door and letting out some of the heat before turning off the oven completely for the final few minutes of cooking – and she’s not afraid to reveal that this goes against the advice of Kiwi celebrity cook Jo Seagar.

Hilary’s other tips include how to create a cafe-style frothy milk and how to heat your coffee mug.

Hilary is known for her warmth and humour, and has become something of a pin-up girl for many New Zealand women with her priceless reactions to criticisms from viewers about what she wears or how much flesh she shows on TV.

Many of us are left in stitches and while it’s all done in a light-hearted way, there is a more serious intent behind her bite backs too.

“I don’t have daughters, but I feel for young women,” she recently told NEXT magazine.

“For one thing, life’s not perfect. But it’s actually our imperfections that make us special, that make us different. I really do believe that. So if I can use my profile to project confidence in my body, and in doing so make another woman more confident in hers, I will.”

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“There are issues I have strong feelings about, where I’m not afraid to say, ‘No, that’s not right’. And that includes issues surrounding women and the shaming of women’s bodies. That sort of thing really annoys the hell out of me.”

Having said that she also acknowledges that “everybody has their ups and downs, no matter who they are”. She holds no grudges against the Barbs of this world .

“We really are a country of kind people. You travel overseas, and you see the state of other nations and their collective psyches, and it’s clear that comparatively, we’re a pretty upbeat lot. I’d like to see our little hub be an example and an inspiration to the rest of the world.”

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