Paul Hollywood calls Bake Off's Prue Leith 'embarrassing' after 'walking out of tent'

Paul Hollywood has revealed how Great British Bake-Off co-star Prue Leith’s somewhat crude sense of humour has sometimes left him so “embarrassed” he’s had to walk out of the show’s iconic tent for a short time to get over his giggles.

“The problem is, it’s quite a tactile thing, bread-making or whatever, so certain shapes can look a bit rude on camera,” he told Netflix. Add in Prue’s cheeky sense of humour and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. He recalled one occasion where Prue’s double-entendre quip about a beaver-shaped cake “left everyone in stitches.”

“She’s embarrassing. That’s what she is,” Paul said. “I mean, Prue will say it, and I’m sure she’s saying it deliberately. We were doing sausage rolls, and she said to a guy, ‘I don’t think your sausage is big enough,’ and I just stopped and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to leave for 10 minutes,’ so I walked out the tent.”

Paul adds that, because the show has been such a long-running success, competitors have learned his and Prue’s preferences and have taken to altering their bakes accordingly.

“They know I like key lime pie, they know I like donuts, they know I like crème [pâtissière], they know I like toffee and caramels and all this stuff, so they’ll play on that and go for the flavours that I like, or Prue likes ... So that’s bakers doing their homework, which is what I would do if I was in this.”

He says that if he had entered the competition himself, he’d be looking for a “Hollywood Handshake” every week. Or perhaps the even rarer “Paul Pat” issued for the first time ever during Bread Week this year when Carmarthenshire competitor Georgie excelled with her Chelsea buns.

The “Paul Pat,” he explains, is actually a consolation prize for bakers who haven’t quite achieved the standard for the coveted handshake.

He explains: “When I saw Dylan’s, then that was the benchmark that I was looking for. She was close. I knew, I glanced across, and I did see Dylan’s coming, and I was like, ‘Oh God, no, this is close but no biscuit.’ ”