Mary Berry may be one of the nation’s most loved foodies but she was unable to get on a cookery teaching course due to not being “clever enough” at maths.

The Great British Bake Off judge, 80, has also said that the first thing she learned to bake was a Christmas cake at school.

As fans gear up for the latest series of the BBC baking show, Berry said it is “terribly important” she and Paul Hollywood do not get involved with the contestants outside of the famous tent.

Mary Berry (BBC/Shine TV)
Mary Berry (BBC/Shine TV)

Asked if she always wanted to be a baker, Berry told Radio Times magazine: “I wasn’t the brightest button in the class at school but I enjoyed cooking and baking.

“I wasn’t clever enough at maths O-level to get onto the cookery teaching course I really wanted to do, so I did a catering course instead.”

Berry said the first thing she learned to bake was a Christmas cake, “as soon as the war was over and we could get hold of the ingredients”.

Asked if she socialises with the show’s contestants, she said: “It’s terribly important that we don’t get involved with them. We meet them as they walk into the tent, we talk to them in the tent, and that is shared with the viewer. I don’t want to see them out of the tent at all.