My favourite TV show is... 'Downton Abbey.' The characters are wonderful, and the style is created so beautifully on screen. Everything from the table settings to the linen seem perfect to me. While I'm watching it, I'm in a totally different world.
We have three and a half acres, complete with duck pond and wildflower meadow and open annually by appointment as part of the National Gardens Scheme.
When I thought I couldn't write recipes, my boss at the time advised, 'Write as you talk.'
One of my first jobs was as a recipe tester for a PR agency. One week, the editor of 'Housewife' magazine called my boss and asked me to write a column - the cookery editor had gone away on a press trip. I was terrified.
It helps to have a happy home life to keep up alongside your career.
A lot of other reality shows on television can be bullying and aggressive, but we wanted 'The Bake Off' to be an antidote to that.
You've got to pay an awful lot for your hotel before you get fresh orange juice. If a hotel has got proper orange juice - and you do expect it if you're abroad - I rank the hotel highly.
I grow herbs near the back door, and you can grow a wonderful selection of herbs and window boxes... My idea is that you should grow what you eat. There's no point in growing something like celeriac - which is very difficult to grow - if you hate it.
When I started, you had cochineal food colouring that would turn things pink, but you could never make it red. Now, red is no problem - and if you look at supermarket bakery sections since 'Bake Off' began, you can get everything.
I have no burning ambitions, and I can honestly say the thing I love most is 'Bake Off.' That will always come first.
Our aim is to get people to enjoy 'Bake Off' at home and for our bakers to enjoy what they are doing. We don't want to catch them out. It's a very happy occasion, and it's about encouraging people to bake at home.
All my grandchildren bake. On a Saturday, Annabel's boys, Louis and Toby, always bake. Louis makes a chocolate cake, Toby makes banana or lemon drizzle. They're 12 and 10, and they can do it totally on their own. My son's twin girls, Abby and Grace, are 14; they make birthday cakes and like to do it on their own with Mum out of the way.
What a privilege and honour it has been to be part of seven years of magic in a tent - 'The Great British Bake Off.'
I was always nervous before a television show, and I still am now. But 'The Great British Bake Off' is a happy show; there is no bad language, and although we do have drama, we deal with it calmly.
Lots of people have written to say 'Bake Off' has inspired them to bake with their children. I feel proud about that; it's exactly what I used to do with mine.
'The Great British Bake Off' is family entertainment. There aren't many programmes where all ages can sit and watch from beginning to end. Everything else is violent, cruel, and noisy. We're educational without viewers realising it.
I make myself eat one piece of toast for breakfast. When I'm doing 'Bake Off,' I eat soup for lunch. I know what puts on weight for me; it's just over-indulgence.
Before the start of each new series, I go shopping for my 'Bake Off' wardrobe. I've got increasingly confident with my look and now wear much more colour than I did at the start.
While we're filming 'Bake Off,' I can get really cold, so I'm often holding a hot-water bottle or layered up under an anorak and a warm hat.
I've been amazed by the success of 'The Great British Bake Off.' I've been 'rediscovered' at the age of 76. When I was asked to be a judge, I said I wanted to be myself. I didn't want to shout like some other television judges. I also said I was a very bad bread maker, so would the programme makers find someone to help on the bread scene?
