A FATHER-OF-FOUR born and, er, bread in Harrow who loves to create cakes and biscuits is one of the amateur bakers taking part in the new series of the smash hit cult cookery show The Great British Bake Off.

Macaron-mad Enwezor Nzegwu, 39, now lives in Southsea in Hampshire and works at the nearby University of Portsmouth as a business consultant in the information services department.

Read our latest update on Enwezor's progress:

He was a self-confessed “baking geek” and was known by colleagues for bringing homemade snacks to meetings before landing a spot on the BBC programme.

The half Nigerian and half Japanese married 39-year-old said: “Being on The Great British Bake Off has been the most amazing experience. I’ve learned so much and made the most fantastic friends. I couldn’t believe I was selected.

“I’d watched the programme and thought I knew what it involved, but it’s much more intense, more demanding.

“I didn’t think it would be so hard, but it has also been an incredible experience, I’ve just loved it.”

Each week one of the 12 The Great British Bake Off contestants is sent home by judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry following a series of baking tasks and tasting sessions.

Enwezor is forbidden from revealing how far he got in the competition but remembers the first time Paul and Merry critiqued the results of his first week challenge - a swiss roll and a cherry cake.

He said: “I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me, it was awful, just awful.

“All the people on the show are just fantastic, I think they are careful to select people who can bake but who are not in it for fame.

“It’s all about the skills – we are all just baking geeks – so it was really tough to take the feedback sometimes.”

Enwezor feels his strength lies in his interest in culinary technique rather than decoration.

He said: “I love making things like macarons or éclairs.

“I enjoy a degree of technical difficulty.

“But being on the show was such a great learning experience and I can now see anything and think ‘I can make that’.

“I’m also much more critical about taste and flavour.”

Enwezor, who runs a Facebook group for amateur bakers in Portsmouth, has lived with wife Karen and their four children, aged two to seven, in Southsea for 15 years.

He had to keep his appearance on the show secret from work colleagues until the announcement made as part of promotion for the fifth series that begins on Wednesday.