Home cook Suzie has the recipe for success

The self-employed accountant from Lisburn, beat finalists Sarah Woods and Georgia Salamat to the title after impressing judges, Mary Berry, Angela Hartnett, Chris Bavin and Tom Kerridge, with her three-course dinner party meal.

The former Wallace High School student said it is ‘a bit surreal’ talking about her win, as the series was filmed a year ago and she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.

‘‘Having kept it under wraps for so long, it’s strange now to be able to talk about it.

‘‘I never let on to anybody because I couldn’t. The contracts are extremely scary, so I just immersed myself back into family and working life.’’

But she said she is now enjoying every moment of her success.

‘‘I am just on cloud nine at the moment. It is a very strange thing to say I have won a national TV show competition.’’

As for the future, Suzie said she has ‘hundreds of recipes’ in her head and would love to write a cookbook, whilst opening a coffee shop or restaurant has always been her ‘retirement dream’.

‘‘I would hope there’s something. I have an agent now, but I just need to see what’s out there. She’s doing all that work at the moment. I don’t know what this new journey might hold. But to get back to reality, I have three sets of accounts to file over the next few days so I’ll be carrying on with that.’’

Suzie has always wanted to cook, but when her mother died when she was a teenager, her career path took a different turn.

‘‘My mum passed away when I 16. I was meant to go to cookery school, Cordon Bleu or Prue Leith’s Cookery School, but she got ill during my GCSE year and my world got turned upside down. I just carried on with education and got my GCSEs, A levels and my degree and by that stage it was too late to follow this dream I had in the cooking world. But I think this might be a new opportunity. My mum would say ‘follow your gut’.’’

Throughout the competition the judges were impressed with Suzie’s range of techniques, as well as her ability to think on her feet.

Berry said: “We are there to choose the best home cook and we’ve loved every minute. And I think we’ve come to the right conclusion.”

But although Suzie may have won a top cooking competition, her two children, Zander,5, and Odelia, 2, aren’t so easy to impress.

‘‘‘At the first episode they kept going ‘Oh mummy!’ but after that they couldn’t care less and kept trying to change the channels to their cartoons.’’