IT is the end of a long, frustrating day, during which Candice Brown had to contend with train delays, a schlep across London on foot to reach her car, and a traffic-clogged, two-hour drive to The Green Man – the pub she owns with her brother, Ben.
"I'm just watching one of the members of staff walking in and two girls are dancing," Brown (36) tells me on the phone, welling up with pride and relief as she surveys the happy scene in the Bedfordshire pub, a few weeks after pubs reopened following lockdown restrictions easing in England.
"At one point last year, we didn't have enough money to pay [the staff]. We had £416 in the bank, we were thinking, 'What are we going to do?' But we kept going and we've done it."
Trying to keep the siblings' business afloat was just one of the challenges the 2016 Great British Bake Off winner has faced during the pandemic.
"The first and second lockdowns, I was here [in Eversholt] on my own, which had a big impact on me. It's a very small village and when it goes dark, it is pitch black and it is silent. Then I decided, I need some noise, I need something, otherwise I'm going to actually lose my mind."
After separating from Liam Macauley, her husband of two years, Brown moved in with friend Lauren Mahon, founder of the GIRLvsCANCER community, and now splits her time between their shared flat in Hackney and her lodgings above the pub.
Having previously spoken about her experiences of depression and PTSD following a traumatic incident at a hospital, last year, the former PE teacher was diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; a condition that often goes undetected in women).
"It presents itself so differently in women and in girls," says Brown, who is nicknamed Bumble because of her tendency to buzz about and flit between projects.
"It can be lack of attention, it can be a hundred things happening in your brain, it can be talking and completely losing your train of thought."
How is she doing now, nearly a year-and-a-half into the pandemic?
"Quite honestly, I'm mentally in quite a bad place, but I'm learning to deal with it in different ways. I'm seeing a therapist, which is helping, but obviously I think he sometimes needs to go backwards to move forward."
She's keen to point out that people with 'invisible' illnesses "can still achieve and you can still succeed. It's OK to go away and cry and go, 'Oh my god, I am literally at breaking point', but still on the surface look OK."
At the same time, Brown admits she sometimes struggles with self-compassion, while having an enormous amount of empathy for others.
"When other people are talking, I would never say to them, 'You should be ashamed of your mental health', or, 'You should be ashamed of asking for help'. It's quite ironic, because sometimes I still feel huge amounts of shame, which is probably why I'm so terrified about the book coming out."
That book is Happy Cooking, in which Brown writes candidly about her struggles and how she retreats to the kitchen in times of need ("I cook and I bake when I'm happy, sad, stressed, angry..."), and reveals the recipes that help her cope, whether it's a comforting, gooey cheese and sausage toastie, a nourishing chicken tray bake, nostalgia-inducing angel cake, or Swedish cinnamon buns made for sharing.
"As I say very openly in the acknowledgements – sorry, I get quite emotional," Brown says, welling up again.
"It's been the hardest year of my life. I managed to put pen to paper and I'm so proud of that, and to be able to share something that's been so difficult for me."
With the book, she hopes to encourage others to discover their own ways of coping, whether food-related or not.
"We all know somebody – or we are that person – that maybe still struggles with mental health, and if cooking is your way of dealing with it, or reading or walking or running or exercise, then share those little things.
"My little, weird, sweary Happy Cooking book, it doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's just my way of doing things and if people go, 'OK, I'm going to give that a go', then that will make me very, very happy."
As for now? The courageous cook's got a pub full of hungry punters and the Friday night rush waiting. Having grown up with pub-owning parents, she was never under the illusion that being a landlady would be easy, and insists the "insane work" is also immensely rewarding.
"You see [the pub] busy, you get people saying they love what you've done and they've really enjoyed the food... that makes it all worth it," Brown says, laughing as she thinks back to when she and her brother took on The Green Man back in 2019.
"We knew it'd be hard work, but we never factored in a global pandemic, that's for sure. You couldn't write it, could you?"
Happy Cooking by Candice Brown, photography by Ellis Parrinder, is published by Ebury Press, £22. Below are two recipes for you to try at home...
Goat's cheese, smoked salmon and asparagus filo tart
Ingredients (serves 4-6):
6–8 sheets of ready-made filo pastry
50g unsalted butter, melted
250g fine asparagus
5 eggs
100ml double cream
100ml whole milk
Small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley
200g baby spinach
5 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
200g smoked salmon
250g soft goat's cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan (180C/350F/Gas Mark 4).
2. Brush a 25cm flan or quiche tin with melted butter and then lay in the first layer of filo pastry. Brush this with melted butter and lay in the second layer, then brush with more melted butter. Repeat with the filo and butter until there are no gaps in the pastry, the tin is covered, and you have lots of lovely jagged edges sticking up. You will have to arrange the sheets at different angles – about six to eight sheets of pastry should work. Brush the last layer of pastry with butter and bake for eight to 10 minutes until the filo starts to turn golden and crispy. Remove from the oven and set aside.
3. Bend the asparagus spears until they snap – this is the bit that is too woody to eat – then blanch for two minutes in boiling water.
4. Mix the eggs, cream, milk and some salt and pepper together in a jug. Finely chop the parsley and stir through.
5. Layer up the spinach, asparagus and spring onions in the baked filo pastry case and tear the smoked salmon over the top. Pour over the egg mixture and top with slices of the goat's cheese. Very carefully transfer the filled filo pastry case to the oven. (You may find it easier to put the flan tin on a flat baking tray and pour the egg mixture into the pastry while it is in the oven – just be careful not to burn yourself.)
6. Bake for 25–30 minutes until the egg is just set with a slight wobble and the filo is golden brown – if it starts to catch, simply cover it with foil.
7. Serve warm on its own or with a heap of salad.
Whack-it-all-in chocolate cornflake rocky road
Ingredients (makes about 9 squares):
250g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids for a more grown-up flavour), chopped, or dark chocolate chips
125g unsalted butter, cubed
4tbsp golden syrup
100g cornflakes
100g oaty biscuits
75g dried cherries
50g sultanas
100g marshmallows, either mini or larger ones roughly chopped
50g pecans
100g chocolate caramel bars
50g white chocolate, chopped, or white chocolate chips
Method:
1. Heat a saucepan of water over a medium heat until simmering.
2. Place a heatproof bowl over the saucepan, but don't let the water touch the bottom of the bowl (this is a bain-marie). Put the dark chocolate, butter and golden syrup in the bowl and melt slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon. Once melted, remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly.
3. Stir through the cornflakes. Break up the oaty biscuits, then add them to the melted chocolate along with the remaining ingredients, except the chocolate caramel bars and white chocolate. Gently fold through so everything is evenly coated in melted chocolate.
4. Line a 20 x 20cm baking dish with greaseproof paper and scrape the mixture evenly into the tray. Gently spread it out but leave it jagged and lumpy.
5. Break or cut up the chocolate caramel bars and dot over the top.
6. Melt the white chocolate in a bain-marie or in 20-second bursts in a microwave. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the top of the rocky road, then transfer to the fridge to set for 20–30 minutes for a soft-set rocky road.
7. Any leftovers will keep in an airtight container in the fridge or a cool place for up to one week.
