Last year’s Great British Bake Off champion Candice Brown has announced her engagement to Liam Macaulay.
The TV cook, 32, has told of her “amazing year” since winning the popular programme, and that it was completed by her partner’s romantic proposal at the pub they went to on their very first date.
Brown told Hello! magazine: “I get emotional because it’s been such an amazing year. I feel very lucky.
“I’ve had such incredible opportunities – Bake Off opened so many doors – and to top it off he puts a ring on it.”
Mr Macaulay, a tree surgeon, took Brown to The Black Horse in Bedfordshire for the proposal, and she said she had no idea of his plan.
Brown said: “As we got there I was saying, ‘Remember our first date?’ Liam hadn’t been driving for very long at the time and wasn’t the best at parking, so got all flustered.
“He pulled into the exact same parking spot as that first night and I was laughing about it.
“Then he ran round and opened my door like he did on that first night. He reached into the glove compartment, got out the ring, got down on one knee and said: ‘I love you, you are my world. Will you marry me?’”
Mr Macaulay joked that he proposed “in a car park” but said that it “meant something” to them.
“Candice just cried for five minutes before she could say, ‘Yes!’,” he added.
More than 15 million viewers tuned in to watch Brown become the winner of the last series of Bake Off to air on BBC One before its move to Channel 4.
She said she is still a fan of the show – the current series of which ends on Tuesday – but that she is unable to guess who the winner will be.
She said: “I don’t know. It’s been so tight. Everyone has had ups and downs so I don’t know who will win.
“I still love watching it. It’s like an old familiar friend. It’s an amazing thing to feel a part of.”
:: Read the full article in Hello!, out now.