Who Might Replace Prue Leith On Bake Off? One Name Keeps Coming Up

As Dame Prue Leith prepares to leave The Great British Bake Off tent after nine seasons and 400 challenges as a judge, rumors are flying about who should and will replace her. And the name that keeps rising like a chocolate soufflé is none other than Nigella Lawson. According to The Times, there has been speculation about the 66-year-old TV chef and cookbook author joining the Bake Off tent since 2024, when Leith opted out of judging the celebrity version of the show.

"Nigella's recognised worldwide," a source told The Sun about the possibility of Lawson joining Paul Hollywood as a judge. "She's got the cheeky banter down to a tee, with all her work laden with the fun innuendos and naughty patter that are synonymous with Bake Off. Prue has been wonderful but Nigella will be a sure-fire hit."

While the decision has yet to be finalized, The Sun's source said that contract negotiations were in the final stages. "All being well, Nigella will be heating up the famous tent soon."

Luckily for the Channel 4 audience, the channel where The Great British Bake Off is aired in the United Kingdom, Nigella Lawson isn't a stranger. According to The Guardian, her show "Nigella Bites" debuted on Channel 4 in 1999, one year after her cookbook entitled How to Eat was published. She was also a judge alongside Ludo Lefebvre and Anthony Bourdain on "The Taste," a cooking competition show that aired on Channel 4 in 2014 and ran for one season. Her most recent U.K. television series was on BBC Two in 2020, called "Cook, Eat, Repeat," the same as her cookbook, which was also published in 2020. She has also done several Christmas specials for the BBC, like "Nigella's Amsterdam Christmas Special" in 2023, and has previously been a guest judge on MasterChef Australia.

In The Guardian article, Lawson is described as a natural choice to join Paul Hollywood and hosts Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding in the Bake Off tent. Her predecessors, Prue Leith and Mary Berry, while typically not considered as "tough" as Hollywood, were firm in their own right, and while Lawson may not seem like the intimidating, steely type, there's more to her charming smile and gentle voice than meets the eye. The Guardian article noted, "They both demanded that you impress them. Nigella is the same. She is formidably intelligent with high expectations. Imagine serving her a collapsed soufflé. Imagine the hurt and disappointment in her eyes."