Lisa Faulkner
Following her 2010 win of 'Celebrity Masterchef' and the role of host on Channel 4's 'What's Cooking', Lisa Faulkner is making her animated acting debut.
The celebrity chef, presenter and actress will star in a Disney Fairies animated short called 'The Pixie Hollow Bake Off', and we got the chance to chat to Lisa about the experience.
Tell us a little bit about 'The Pixie Hollow Bake Off' and your character.
It's a little, short film for Disney Fairies, and obviously if you know the Disney fairies and Pixie Hollow - which I did because my daughter's obsessed with them - there's a Bake Off and I play a baking fairy, Gelata.
She's a very fantastic cook, and wants to win. Basically, Tinker Bell says 'I'm gonna mix it up, I can do a cake too' and she says 'right, OK, bring it on!' and they have a little bake off! It's very, very sweet and it's a very nice little story. She's very focused Gelata - she wants to win!
Lisa's character GelataHow was the experience of working on something like this?
It was so lovely. It's only a six-minute short and I was really honoured to do it because A) my daughter loves it, so finally my daughter will think I'm cool, and B) to work with Tinker Bell, and Anjelica Huston plays the queen, it's crazy to think there I am and I'm doing voicing.
The nation have really grown to love baking in the past few years, how important do you think it is as a skill for both adults and children?
I think what it does - there are certain times, especially with young children you'll run them about going to the park - if it's pouring with rain it's a really lovely thing to do together and I think that's why it's so popular. There are very few things you can do together - there are a few television shows you can watch together, 'Great British Bake Off' being one of them. I think it's that thing of cooking with kids and getting children involved in food - it's the only way that they will learn A) how to cook, and B) learn to eat healthily which is really important.
Would you do something like this again if the door was opened?
I'd like there to be a whole Gelata series! (laughs) Where she does recipes and she just does baking - a whole little thing.
What is your show-stopping dish when it comes to baking?
I love baking, I think probably at the moment I've been doing a lot of ginger cakes and it's just coming up to now making everything for Christmas, so I know that in the air there's gonna be soon, Christmas puddings and Christmas cake, and mince meat.
You recently released a book, tell us about that.
It's called 'The Way I Cook' and it's got lots of different times to cook - when it's raining or the sun's shining, when I haven't got any time, when the house is full of kids, for family and friends when I want to make something special, so it's all different, the times you want to cook, with different recipes. I really, really loved it. I loved doing it, I loved coming up with the recipes, it was great, and people really seem to like it, which is ace.
Away from the book and 'Pixie Hollow Bake Off', are there any other projects you're involved in?
I've got another book to write! I've also got all the 'Good Food' shows that I'm doing - the BBC 'Good Food Show', and I'm hosting the Masterchef stage there, and I'm doing the Ideal Home Show as well so I'm full of cooking shows at the moment.
'The Pixie Hollow Bake Off' airs on Disney Channel from October 20. Lisa Faulkner's book 'The Way I Cook' is out now.