Alison Hammond's Bake Off best bits: How the new host fared as a contestant

Alison Hammond is set to make her debut as The Great British Bake Off's latest host - but this won't be her first time in the tent.

The This Morning presenter was actually a contestant herself in the 2020 series of The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer, so she knows exactly how those nervous bakers will be feeling.

She might not have won Star Baker, but Hammond certainly marked herself out as a popular star to bring back to the tent and looking back, her potential to host is clear to see.

Here's how things went down for Hammond when she entered series three of Celebrity Bake Off.

Alison Hammond's Celebrity Bake Off

The 48-year-old TV star went up against YouTuber Joe Sugg, singer James Blunt and TV presenter Alex Jones when she took part in 2020.

Sugg was the episode's winner, but Hammond had her fair share of triumphs and looked like a natural to take charge in the tent, even asking her fellow bakers: "Have you all washed your hands?"

Read more: All the Bake Off winners and where they are now

Looking delighted to be a contestant, she said: "I think good food, good baking comes from the heart, and I have got a lot of heart."

Signature Bake

The bakers were asked to make traybakes, and for Hammond, the recipe was a no-brainer.

She confidently told judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood: "I love chocolate brownies, absolutely love them, but any time I go out and try a brownie - never compares to my brownies. And I know that sounds really big headed."

Leith told her: "In three years, I don’t think we’ve ever met anybody with this much confidence."

Branding herself "a natural baker", Hammond looked relaxed as she got going with her tried-and-tested recipe...until an unusual disaster struck.

She said: "Things are just running so smooth for me, this is actually boring TV.

"In it goes for 20...where's the door gone?"

After some searching around, Hammond realised the tent's ovens actually had fancy retractable doors.

Leith and Hollywood agreed with her confidence, judging the brownies as "divine".

Technical Challenge

Hammond's savoury skills were tested in the technical, where she was asked to make 12 miniature Yorkshire puddings filled with beef and horseradish.

She stayed cool and calm as she told the cameras: "I'm just going to go with my natural instinct."

In the blind judging, Leith and Hollywood were impressed with Hammond's consistent Yorkshire puds, praising the beef and horseradish, too.

Leith said: "Very impressed, very good."

Showstopper

Sadly for the former Big Brother star, she fell at the final hurdle with that notoriously tough Bake Off ask - an edible biscuit structure.

The celebs were challenged to make a biscuit scene of one of their childhood dreams, but Hammond found she'd bitten off more than she could chew.

She said: "When I was a kid I wanted to be a police officer. All I wanted to do was jump over car bonnets and save people.

"I just think I was destined to serve and protect, I really do."

But she had problems with a collapsing biscuit police station and struggled to finesse the icing on her biscuits.

As Leith commented: "Icing is not your forte."

However, Hammond had at least brushed up on her Bake Off slogans, telling Hollywood as he broke one of the biscuits: "Ooh, look at that snap."

A laughing Hollywood told her: "It is a little like a five-year-old has been given a load of biscuits to cut out and ice.

"It's not the best looking thing I've seen, but it tastes amazing."

The Great British Bake Off starts on Tuesday, 26 September at 8pm on Channel 4.