Top baker Lepard's hot spot
Award-winning baker, author and food writer Dan Lepard was better known in the UK than in his native Australia but all that has changed with his role as a judge on Nine's new cooking series, The Great Australian Bake Off.
Lepard was a photographer before switching to baking in the 1990s and his acclaimed cookbooks include The Hand Made Loaf and Short and Sweet.
"I have made cakes since I was a kid growing up in Boronia in the hills north- east of Melbourne," he said.
"After school, I was one of those latchkey kids, so I would bake myself a cake. So cakes are always comfort food for me.
"If ever I'm a bit tired, a bit stressed with work and things, I bake a cake and it is a wonderful soothing thing."
When Lepard decided to change career paths he was concerned he didn't know many good bakers.
"If there aren't the sorts of figureheads and inspirational people there, you're put off it a bit," he explained.
"Maybe I just got a bit more confident and I thought, 'Well, actually if there aren't many great bakers around maybe there's an opportunity to be one'."
Lepard writes a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper and his recipes appear on the BBC's website, but The Great Australian Bake Off is his first foray into television.
"This is my first television show, my debut. Working with Anna Gare and Shane Jacobson has been a really sweet experience," he enthused. "They sort of look after me, as does Kerry. Kerry is a tough but fair judge of our bakers and every time she does something I think I can learn from that."
If WA-raised Kerry Vincent is the tough judge, then Lepard is the softer touch, usually brimming with enthusiasm and encouragement. "The bakers, I care about them so much and want them to do well and I don't lose my temper that often," he said.
"Whenever I do it's because I expect them to be good; we are looking for Australia's best home baker and sometimes it gets hard. That's the other side of the show; it is not a cheffy show, it is the opposite side of the oven completely.
"This is about taking very simple, easy- to-find common kitchen ingredients and turning them into amazing things.
"We are not using rare ingredients; we're using butter, eggs, flour, sugar, and turning them into showstoppers."
Lepard's most recent book, Short and Sweet, can be bought online as an ebook and Lepard thinks technology is encouraging people to cook.
"I think a lot of home cooks are seeing a lot of people like themselves making a birthday cake from scratch, decorating it themselves, so the internet is really changing things.
"I think with more tablet devices and mobile phones people start to be inspired."
He also thinks grandmothers are keeping cooking traditions alive.
"As you look within your family, mothers aren't necessarily the bakers at home; often grandmothers are," he said.
"A lot of people say they are inspired by their grandmothers' baking, so maybe it is time for grandparents to step up and show us what we should be doing."
The Great Australian Bake Off airs on Tuesday at 8.30pm on Nine/WIN.
