“ I love France. It's got the sun down at the bottom, the Alps for skiing, and all that wine and food. ”
I don't feel 50. I'm still ambitious, and I've only just got my licence to race sports cars. I race for an Aston Martin team called Beechdean, and it's a huge challenge.
~ Paul Hollywood
Before I was ever a baker, I was a teacher. Or, at least, that is what I thought I was going to be. After O-levels, I went to art school in Wallasey on the Wirral, and my mate Cavan and I did a teacher training course.
To make a full-blooded puff pastry, you need time, you need patience, and you need precision. It's all about the lamination: it's all about building up the layers of butter, dough, butter, dough; as the butter melts, it creates steam, and that brings up the layers of the two doughs apart from each other, and that's what gives it the rise.
Ironically, when I was in Dubai with the BBC 'Good Food Show,' even though it's an urban area, when you see the vast panorama from the top of the Burj Khalifa, it feels remote, as if it's just sprung up out of the desert. I like Dubai. I didn't think I would, but the food and the people were great.