BRADFORD’s very own former Great British Bake Off star spoke to The Telegraph and Argus about what she would like to see in the upcoming series of the show.

Sandy Docherty, a child protection and welfare officer at Titus Salt School in Baildon appeared initially in the 2015 edition of the baking popular baking contest and was one of 12 chosen out of a staggering 16,000 applications for her series.

Since then, she has published her own cookery book called Sandy D Bakes: Baking Down Barriers, and has appeared on numerous cooking shows.

She said: I’m hoping we see some challenges that inspire us. I like the challenges but I believe it’s a baking programme for everybody so it should be about inspiration. I hope they come up with things that make you want to get up and have a go.”

“I want to see some talented amateur bakers. I like to see them being amateurs rather than ‘wannabe professionals’.

Sandy said that viewers could be set to see another level of talent from the contestants this year, after being locked in with plenty of time to bake during the lockdowns.

She said: “Working from home, you can juggle a bit of baking. You can always bob something in and then instead of bobbing out for a coffee you can bob downstairs and mix something up and run back upstairs to your laptop.”

"I always think that technical challenge is the one that sorts out domestic bakers from ones that just want to get on in television.

That technical bake, people should have a knowledge of it, not need to know it but should have a knowledge and that makes them a baker.”

Sandy added that 'age doesn’t reflect a baker's talent', and the youngest contestant on this year's series Freya Cox who is just 19, is 'just as capable' of winning as elder competitors.

She said: “I’m not going to knock any 19-year-olds, it was a young lad that won last year, they’re very passionate.

"I think everybody enters with a passion but it's anybody’s field, and because it’s a competition you don’t get an accumulative winner, it’s a knockout that makes it exciting and every baker has their forte.

"Bread week might be your nemesis or biscuit you might be amazing but it just depends which way around they come, it’s all down to what happens on the day.”

Sandy spoke of her cheesecake catastrophe on her series of the show and said that “it took her a while to bake a cheesecake again,” and how failure can knock a baker's confidence.

She said it could be likely for more challenges to involve, vegan or dairy-free bakes, especially if the bakers themselves have these dietary requirements.

She added: “During my series, we did a free-from week and made a dairy-free ice cream, so there could be more of that.

I think Paul and Prue have been doing their studying and they see these products out on the market so things are possible, and I think there will be bakers that lean that way as well so it could mean a new set of challenges. "

When asked about the future of the show, Sandy said she doesn’t want the bakers to use GBBO as 'a springboard into a world of TV', and added that she thinks ‘Bake Off is too precious for that.'

She said: “For me, bake-off has always been about the ordinary person living next door to you who’s just a damn-good bake-off, who shares and gives and bakes well. 

" So far I haven’t been let down, but I want it to stay ordinary. As much as quirky is nice, it’s about the public, and that’s why Bake off is so very special because people like to support ordinary people.”

The new series kicks off on 21 September 2021 at 8pm on Channel 4.

Sandy will giving The Telegraph and Argus her weekly views and opinions of each episode on a Wednesday, as part of her online column called 'Sandy Says'.