Still pinching herself to check she's not dreaming, the baking queen tells Ella Walker all about it.

Candice Brown won the Great British Bake Off last year, and now has her first book out. Let's just say, she's still trying to get her head around these really quite delicious facts.

"It's funny saying that... 'My book!'" she says, with a small, bemused laugh.

Winning Bake Off, the ultimate show for those who pride themselves on the quality of their lemon drizzle and the sturdiness of their pie crust, would, you'd think, prepare a person for automatic cookbook domination and a tasty TV career. However, 32-year-old former PE teacher Candice is still utterly gobsmacked.

In fact, when she got the call confirming her book deal, she was wandering around Fortum & Mason, staring at the meat in the butcher's section - and had to hang up to gaze, stunned, at the carcasses for a while longer, while the news sunk in.

Three manic months of writing, cooking, developing (and very little sleep) later, and the result is Comfort, a collection of Candice's tried-and-tested home classics: "The sort of things you want to stick your face in, grab a spoon, dive straight in and worry about burning your mouth later".

Squidged between snaps of her pug Dennis, the recipes are huge, decadent and sometimes borrowed treats - think an enormous, bubbling shepherd's pie, sausage rolls the size of bricks, and her beloved nan's boiled fruit cake. "Everything has a story," explains the London-born baker. "I'm so proud of it - it's big flavours, it's big pots."

Piecing all the recipes together was something of a challenge though, as Candice admits she's "bloody awful at writing them down".

"Liam [my boyfriend] would always say to me, 'Are you writing that down?' And I'd go, 'YES, YES!', knowing full well I'm not writing anything down at all, because I do what I call a 'guess-a-cake' - I just whack everything in and hope for the best. But then, if it works really well I'll be like, 'Argh, what did I put in that?!'"

And if it goes horribly wrong? "Don't worry about it," she says. "You either don't tell anyone and start again, or you turn it into something else and say it was supposed to look like that - that's how I get by a lot of the time."

Minor mishaps aside, Candice, who started baking before the age of 5, considers it "one of the only things that comes naturally to me", but still doesn't fully comprehend how she won Bake Off.

"I don't think I was the best baker in the tent," says the pub landlord's daughter, without artifice. "Some days I still don't know how I did what I did, because I hadn't been able to do it at home. Dad always said I was the same at university and school. I'd say, 'I can't do this, I can't do it', then the pressure would hit, and I'd get my head down and do it."

In the end, and (controversial) lippy intact, she beat finalists Andrew Smyth and Jane Beedle to the crown. "It's crazy, it's stressful, intense, it's tiring - but I'd do it a hundred times over," she says, recalling how demanding it was manning an oven while at the mercy of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood's taste buds. "I was going to work and, on lunch breaks, going down to town either to buy ingredients or popping into antiques shops [for props]."

Then she was coming home, baking until the early hours, snagging a few hours sleep and then going back to her teaching job come morning: "It's the best thing I've ever done."

And yes, she will be watching the new series on Channel 4. "It's always been my favourite programme - it's going to be so funny. Prue [Leith] is a culinary legend, then you've got Paul who'll just give that ice stare and wind everyone up.

"And you know what? The breaks are just going to give you time to go for a wee and get a cup of tea." Cheers to that.

Planning a garden party this summer? Why not rustle up a classic Victoria sponge, to add to the occasion?

This one, from 2016 Great British Bake Off winner Candice Brown's debut book, Comfort, is "perfect for parties or sharing (I've not known anyone to eat a whole one... yet!)," she says.

And, it's fairly simple to whip up. Here's how...

Ingredients:

(Serves 10-12)

335g self-raising flour

335g unsalted butter, softened

335g golden caster sugar

3tsp baking powder

6 large eggs

Grated zest of 2 lemons

Juice of 1 lemon

150g fresh raspberries

600ml double cream

500g fresh strawberries, hulled

Icing sugar, to finish

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan (180C/350F/Gas Mark 4). Grease three 25cm round, loose-bottomed sandwich tins and line the bases with greaseproof paper.

2. Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the butter, sugar, baking powder, eggs, lemon zest and juice. Mix together until smooth, fluffy and combined. If using an electric mixer, mix on a medium speed and do not over mix.

3. Divide two-thirds of the mixture between two of the tins. Reserve five of the fresh raspberries for the decoration, then add the rest to the last third of the mixture and mix them through, crushing some of the raspberries as you go. Put this mixture into the third tin.

4. Place the three tins in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes until the sponges are risen and golden, and are slightly coming away from the edges (try not to open the oven before the 20 minutes are up). The raspberry sponge may need another five minutes. Remove the tins from the oven and turn out the sponges onto a wire rack. Leave to cool.

5. Whip the double cream thick enough to hold its shape - do not over-whip. Spoon the cream into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle.

6. Reserve five of the strawberries for the decoration. Evenly slice the rest of the strawberries. Pipe a layer of double cream onto one of the plain sponges. Top with a layer of sliced strawberries. Spread a small amount of cream on the underside of the raspberry sponge, then place it gently on top of the strawberries (the cream helps the sponges stick together).

7. Pipe a layer of double cream on the raspberry sponge and top this with the rest of the sliced strawberries. Spread a small amount of cream on the underside of the other plain sponge, then set this on top of the strawberries. Push down gently and check the layers are even.

8. Top with any leftover cream, the reserved strawberries, cut in half, and the reserved raspberries, then dust with icing sugar.

:: Comfort: Delicious Bakes And Family Treats by Candice Brown, photography Ellis Parrinder, is published in hardback by Ebury Press, priced £20. Available now.