Channel 4’s The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up to Cancer returns, only without Dame Prue Leith

Channel 4’s The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up to Cancer is back with a new judge after it was confirmed Dame Prue Leith, 85, was departing from the programme.

Instead, one of her close friends and former co-owner and managing director of Leiths School of Food & Wine, Lady Caroline Waldegrave, is taking the chef’s place.

However, the 72-year-old has admitted to being “terrified” to take the reigns of the charity version of The Great British Bake Off.

Read more: Jeremy Clarkson fans rush to defend him over gesture to struggling pubs

Upon the announcement she would be joining the programme, Lady Caroline said: “I was completely terrified. Then, when I turned up, I went to the shepherd’s hut I was allotted, and there were banners outside saying ‘Welcome!’ and flowers.”

She will be joining the usual entourage of hosts Alison Hammond, Noel Fielding and fellow chef Paul Hollywood.

They were “just so kind and so friendly that I did relax,” Lady Caroline admitted, saying that the “mood is very light – there’s a lot of laughter – and (co-hosts) Alison (Hammond) and Noel (Fielding) were so nice to me.

“Particularly Alison. I mean, she’s so hugging that it was just magic.”

Prue didn’t leave the Channel 4 cookery show without passing on some sage advice, though, as she told the baker: “When you think something, say it. Be brave and say what you think’, Lady Caroline revealed.

She added: “She is brave and says what she thinks and I think I got braver.”

However, for the avoidance of doubt, Prue will be back on the programme as she made clear to This Morning hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley.

She clarified: “It’s absolutely not true at all! [that she’s quit the show]. What I’m not doing this year is the celebrity one.

“These things are filmed back-to-back all the way through summer from April to August so you don’t get any time off. I’m getting quite old and there’s places I want to see. So I’m not doing this year’s.”

The celebrity line-up for this season includes Sarah Beeny, Adam Buxton, Amelia, Scarlette and Stuart Douglas, Kate, Ellie Goldstein, and Gloria Hunniford OBE.

Joining them are hopefuls are Jim Howick, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Roman Kemp, Jamali Maddix, Maxine, Chris and Rosie Ramsey, Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Meera Syal, Tommy Tiernan, Phil Wang, and Sophie Willan.