More kitchen antics as Bake Off: The Professionals returns

You never know if you can do something until you try.

That’s a fact Ellie Taylor discovered when she took part in last year’s Strictly Come Dancing. After she and her partner, Johannes Radebe, became the ninth couple to leave the competition, she admitted she could not believe what she had managed to achieve.

Speaking to spin-off show It Takes Two, she said: “You just look back at all the stuff that we’ve done and I can’t believe I did 10 dances live on telly, and I’ve told myself throughout my life that I can’t dance.”

Taylor shouldn’t, perhaps, have been surprised, seeing as she appears to have developed her career by grabbing surprising opportunities by the scruff of the neck.

After completing an English Literature degree at the University of York, she interned at FHM magazine, where she was spotted by a modelling agency. However, in her mid-twenties she decided to give stand-up comedy a go, and hasn’t looked back since. Taking part in ITV’s X Factor-style contest Show Me the Funny was followed by numerous TV appearances, including that staple of every stand-up’s career – the panel show.

The likes of 8 Out of 10 Cats, Mock the Week and Fake Reaction pepper her CV. Taylor has also turned to acting, most famously featuring in several episodes of the smash-hit sports-themed comedy-drama Ted Lasso.

She’s also dipped her toe into the world of game show presenting with Netflix’s Cheat alongside Danny Dyer, although it’s been her work for Channel 4 that has probably landed Taylor her latest gig.

During the past year, the broadcaster has employed her to front the short-lived Let’s Make a Love Scene, in which singletons hoped to find love by acting out famous steamy movie moments with a stranger, and the detective-based challenge You Won’t Believe This.

She also stood in as the host of The Great Pottery Throw Down when regular presenter and Derry Girls star Siobhan McSweeney broke her leg and appeared as a contestant in The Great Stand Up to Cancer Bake Off. It’s almost as though someone at Love Productions, who make both programmes, thought, while watching her, “A-ha! She’d make a great replacement for Stacey Solomon on Bake Off: The Professionals”.

However it came about, Taylor makes her debut on the latter this week alongside Liam Charles and judges Benoit Blin and Cherish Finden.

The run begins with a secret challenge – the teams won’t have a recipe to rely on, forcing them to rely on their patisserie instincts, experience, knowledge and teamwork to create 36 individual opera aux fruit and one chocolate amenity in just three hours.

After that, they must turn a classic banoffee pie into a showpiece dessert complete with towering edible showpiece sculptures to be consumed during a fine dining experience.

Once the series ends, Taylor will, of course, be open to more offers of work. As she seems fearless in front of the camera, what will she tackle next? Well, she hasn’t appeared on Dancing on Ice yet, or perhaps a spot of skydiving might be the order of the day…