I can be a romantic. The way to every woman's heart is through her stomach. Food is at the core of everything.

- Paul Hollywood

Ironically, when I was in Dubai with the BBC 'Good Food Show,' even though it's an urban area, when you see the vast panorama from the top of the Burj Khalifa, it feels remote, as if it's just sprung up out of the desert. I like Dubai. I didn't think I would, but the food and the people were great.

- Paul Hollywood

I don't feel 50. I'm still ambitious, and I've only just got my licence to race sports cars. I race for an Aston Martin team called Beechdean, and it's a huge challenge.

- Paul Hollywood

Dad was a baker, and we lived above the bakery, so I was always popping down to have an apple pie or a doughnut or a custard or gypsy tart: I had a very sweet tooth, and I think that that was what got me into doing what I do now.

- Paul Hollywood

I've never been on a diet and never will.

- Paul Hollywood

To make a full-blooded puff pastry, you need time, you need patience, and you need precision. It's all about the lamination: it's all about building up the layers of butter, dough, butter, dough; as the butter melts, it creates steam, and that brings up the layers of the two doughs apart from each other, and that's what gives it the rise.

- Paul Hollywood

I can be a romantic. The way to every woman's heart is through her stomach. Food is at the core of everything.

- Paul Hollywood

I love France. It's got the sun down at the bottom, the Alps for skiing, and all that wine and food.

- Paul Hollywood

I drove from Naples to the Amalfi coast in an Alpha Romeo 1969 Spider, which was lovely. There have been lots of movies made down there, and I felt a bit like James Bond - the driving is quite hairy. The locals have mopeds, but you wouldn't catch me on a bike on those roads. A tank would be safer!

- Paul Hollywood

We didn't travel much when I was little - most of what we did was visit various campsites around Conway, north Wales. My first major holiday abroad was to Ibiza with my parents when I was five. I vividly remember the plane touching down and that the hotel had great swings with lots of little lizards darting about that I was determined to catch.

- Paul Hollywood