Last year’s Great British Bake Off finalist Richard Burr hit out at newspapers as “horrible” for dredging up candidates’ past.

In August, it emerged that 2015 contestant Mat Riley had been involved in a fatal car crash that saw him given a one-year ban for careless driving.

Richard Burr
2014′s finalist Richard Burr (BBC)

Another candidate, 49-year-old Sandy Docherty, was exposed for having a 10-year affair with a married primary school headmaster.

“(The papers) were horrible to Sandy, bringing up her past,” said Richard. “I think Mat coped very well with people dredging up his past. I don’t think he would have gone on (the show) if he wasn’t able to deal with what people might say.”

The 39-year-old builder was forced to defend himself during the previous series when he was accused of not working on a building site.

The finalist, who came runner-up with Luis Troyano to Nancy Birtwhistle, responded to accusations that he only had a “managerial role” by posting a picture of himself and his father repairing a roof with the joking hashtag #massivetoffs.

“I’ve been really lucky. The worst I got was the papers trying to pretend I was a toff and wandering around all the builders’ merchants here trying to ask if I work,” he said.

“What can you do? You could make the most perfect, beautiful signature and there’d be someone willing to taint it for a few column inches. I try and take it all with a pinch of salt,” he added.

Despite being busy since he released his first cookbook, BIY: Bake It Yourself, in August, Richard said that he still gets on site two days a week and that his work had helped him slim down after gaining a stone throughout the show.

Mary Berry in the Great British Bake Off kitchen
Mary Berry (BBC)

Bake Off judge Mary Berry faced backlash for her recent choice of words in the Sunday Times that: “You don’t want somebody who’s judging cakes to be large.”

Richard also took umbrage and said: ”I couldn’t disagree more with Mary. A large person is someone who likes to eat.

“Mary’s awesome and unless she pays attention to what she puts into herself then she’d be the size of a house. But I don’t see anything wrong being someone with a bit of meat on their bones, it shows they love what they do.

“You see Paul (Hollywood) gradually inflating as the series goes forward, but it’s because he likes it. Same happens to me, I put on a stone throughout the series,” he said.

Not only have this year’s candidates dealt with stressful intrusion into their personal lives, Burr thinks some of the technical challenges from Mary and Paul have bordered on “torture”.

Mel Giedroyc and Nadiya Jamir Hussain
Mel Giedroyc and Richard’s favourite Nadiya Hussain (Love Productions/BBC)

“Some of those challenges have been tough: the gluten free one was a real toughie. Those mokatines and the souffle session sound like torture. I’d loved to have done the tennis cake, but not the souffle,” he said.

Richard revealed he was backing Nadiya Hussain as winner in Wednesday’s final and that he had tweeted and chatted with the three finalists: Nadiya, Ian Cumming and Tamal Ray.

“I’ve liked Nadiya from day one when she did that tiny, really little black forest gateau in the first week and everyone else did identical things. I think it takes a lot of confidence in your abilities to put out something understated, especially on week one. I’ve been in her corner right from the start.”

Warming the hearts of all Bake Off fans will be the news that last year’s contestants are still close friends.

“We all meet up for a Christmas party. I’m putting them all up in my house because I’m the Londoner, I’m the way-stop of bakers. I’m just organising how I’m going to cram them onto my sofas and into my daughters’ bunk beds,” he laughed.

Richard said he would be up for an all-star series, pitting the last three finalists against each other in a “best of the best”.

“I would do a Bake Off all-stars tomorrow. I’d go back immediately. I loved it so much while doing it and I miss the tent,” he said.

Richard Burr
Too Hot For TV? (BBC)

Despite being stocked full of brilliant one liners and cream horn innuendo, Richard reckons that we only see half the banter between the contestants in the tent. Could there ever be a Bake Off: Too Hot For TV special?

“No, then everyone would see us for what we truly are, a bunch of potty-mouthed people in a tent,” he laughed.

Richard has been enjoying his year since Bake off ended, with highlights including making a 40th birthday cake for Zaire the gorilla at London Zoo.

If you’d like to know how to make a gorilla’s birthday cake, luckily Richard’s been meeting with production companies to see if his own TV cookery show could be in the works. In his own words, he’d “happily show off in front of a camera”.

Out of the heat of the kitchen, Rich has also got some advice for our three finalists.

1. Get some sleep.

“It’s exhausting, the finals. They release the challenges quite late in the day so no-one except the finalists and the semi-finalists know what they are. You’ve worked all the way through and then pow – you’re given the most difficult thing you’re ever going to make. So the most important thing is to get some sleep.”

2. Get some perspective.

“If it goes wrong, as I had good experience of in the final, then it’s only cake. No-one’s going to die if you muck your cake up at the end of it.”

3. Get your head in the game.

“When you first walk into the tent, there are three roving cameras that keep an eye on the 12 of you. By the time there’s only three of you left, there’s still the same amount of camera crews so there’s nowhere to hide. You’ve got to keep your head.”

4. Enjoy it.

“Squeeze every single last moment out of it because the moment they call the winner then you realise you won’t go back and bake in the tent again, then it’s quite overwhelming. It’s a real achievement to survive all the way through and to be picked in the first place from the 1,000 people.”