Top 44 Mary Berry Quotes

I have no burning ambitions, and I can honestly say the thing I love most is ‘Bake Off.’ That will always come first.

I have no desire to be a centenarian. I think 90 is a great time. You’ve had a good innings. You have to deal with the cards that have been dealt, of course, but I don’t think very old age, if you haven‘t got your marbles, can be very nice.

I hope that I dress for my age. Because there’s no need to be dowdy, is there? But I don’t go with all the colours that everybody is wearing. I’m not very fond of lime green or orange, so I don’t do that. I read all the fashion magazines, but most things are totally unsuitable for somebody of 79.

Wherever possible, I like to use home-grown or locally produced ingredients.

I do not like a quiche with wet, undercooked pastry underneath, and that is that.

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.

I honestly think there shouldn’t be sugared drinks. All my grandchildren drink water all through the day. I’ve just had them to stay, and at breakfast, they have water. They don’t even know what sugary drinks are.

I don’t want food all over the place, down the sides of the sofa… When I shared a flat before I got married, we would always eat around the telly, but not now!

I hate Gordon Ramsay’s programmes: I don’t know if he‘s been told it makes good television.

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.

When I thought I couldn’t write recipes, my boss at the time advised, ‘Write as you talk.’

I never fry a doughnut! If you want a doughnut, go and buy one once in a blue moon. It’s about everything in moderation.

My son is a tree surgeon and gets me a lovely tree. I like to put it up early, as I can’t wait for Christmas. We dress it with decorations that have been in the family for years.

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.

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.

Without doubt, without hesitation, I choose gardening over the gym. I can’t stand going to the gym. It doesn’t appeal to me at all. Give me gardening every time.

I won’t cook in deep fat. Years ago, I met a fireman who said most kitchen fires were caused by deep fat, and I don’t think that’s changed. Oven chips are good enough for my grandchildren, and they’re chuffed with that.

I can’t bear the thought of retirement, and I haven’t prepared myself for it. I don’t play bridge, and I don’t play golf. I do play tennis, but you can’t do that every day of the week.

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.

I’m not great on the florals. I think you’ve got to wear what you’re happy in and that is fun but isn’t mutton dressed up as lamb.

Reluctant as I am to regard myself as a style icon, I would love to think I could inspire older women to make the most of themselves.

I was brought up to believe that it’s family first. Of all the people my parents knew, the family was most important. You always turn to your family, and the family supports you. We do what we can to support our young and go and see the grandchildren if they’re doing plays at school and their sports events.

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.

I don’t go to fancy Michelin-starred restaurants often.

When I was paralysed by polio at 13, I went into an isolation hospital and couldn’t sit up, so I only took liquid food from spouted cups which the masked nurses would bring in and feed to me. I saw my parents only through glass; we couldn’t touch.

I love a good madeira cake. Nice and simple. The most important thing is that a cake is moist. Most people overcook cakes, which dries them out.

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.

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.

‘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.

Looking back, I don’t feel that I was the most brilliant mother. I was always very good at giving my children the right food, but it was one of my regrets in life that I didn’t spend more time listening to them or playing with them.

Having children is the greatest thing that can happen to you as a husband and wife. They are infuriating at times when they’re little, but on the whole, they’re such a joy. I don’t think I was the most brilliant mother when they were young. I had quite a bit of help because I was working and I enjoyed my work.

Freak diets I don’t think work. It’s control.

I think to eat cake is very good for us, but it’s the size of the slice and how often you have it.

It’s so comforting to have a small piece of cake. Just one slice.

My bread and croissants wouldn’t win a prize! I’m not an expert in yeast cookery.

I’m really boring. I think about cooking all the time. I have a little book, so when I go out or see something, I jot it down and try to include it in a recipe or do a variation of it. I even have a notepad by my bed, which is usually saying we’re running out of mango chutney.

Dad thought something very fishy was going on when, at 22, I was offered a job for £1,000 a year – more than Dad paid his own staff – for inventing cheese recipes and writing leaflets at the Dutch Dairy Bureau in London.

I’m just very grateful that the media has been so kind to me, because there’s nothing unusual about me. I’m just a mum and a granny who is teaching cookery on TV. Basically, I’m very ordinary.

I admire my fellow judge Paul Hollywood enormously, though we often argue. He believes presentation and uniformity are paramount; I’m more interested in taste. I don’t mind if one bun is smaller than the others, or if there’s a little pastry cracking, though I don’t want a soggy bottom.

I don’t like tattoos because tattoos are forever.

As parents are usually working, they haven’t time to teach children about cooking, and it’s a wilderness. They should be given healthy recipes – some standbys so that when they leave home, they don’t live on junk.

I know people think I invented the Victoria sandwich, but I’m really not that old.

I never leave anything until the morning. I put my jumpers, scarves, and shoes out the night before. You never know what is going to happen. You don’t want to get stressed.

At 17, I went away to Pau in the south of France for a few months to study domestic science – including cleaning windows with newspaper and water – while living with a Catholic family with 10 children.