Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My My castaway this week is the cookery expert Mary Berry. She's sold more books than most

of us have had hot dinners and currently stars as a judge in that surprise TV smash hit the

great British Bake-Off. She started out when there wasn't in her words an

avocado, mango or kiwi in the country, brought up in a household that grew its own fruit and

veg and sent the family pig to slaughter. Now the undisputed queen of cakes, she

says, the idea of baking as therapy and an effective one might seem a little far-fetched to some

but not to me explain that to me Mary Berry then is it that it's sort of baking is a

shortcut to some sort of domestic contentment you think?

I enjoy baking. I do it, this is total relaxation and the wonderful thing about baking is

you have an audience who's going to say oo and

are and isn't that delicious and can I have another one it's very rewarding you've

said you've described baking as love on a plate. Exactly.

It is love on a plate because you are putting yourself into it.

I mean the whole thing is to give it time and not to do it in a rush for the first time

and follow the recipe carefully and with baking you do have to weigh

the ingredients. So often people say oh well my Gran was a great cook but she never weighed anything but that grand often had a

handleless cup and a particular spoon and a small selection of things that she baked and so they put three cups of that two

spoons of that and it did work every time. I read in one of your cookery books you

say be methodical and follow the recipe

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