In honour of the Great British Bake Off returning to our screens, I am going to dedicate my column this week to one of my pleasures in life – cake.

You must feel some empathy with me when I say there is nothing better than a homebaked, light, moist sponge with a lovely decorative frosting.

My gran was the first person I watched baking. She was a cook and baker in her native St Lucia and taught me from a young age how to make the perfect sponge.

She was highly critical of her work and would often make me beat the sugar and butter with a wooden spoon until it was “just so”.

I have fond memories of watching the sponge rise through the glass of the oven then impatiently waiting for it to cool in order to decorate it, and then finally tuck in.

Unfortunately, she is now old and bedridden, but I hope I am still doing justice to what she taught me.

Now, we all are aware of healthy eating accompanied by exercise for a balanced lifestyle. Michael and I often have this battle, especially as we work on television (they say it puts 10 pounds on you) so we try and cut out anything nice and comforting to eat.

This week, in order to keep the love handles in check, but have a treat at the same time, we decided to make coconut flour banana bread, which was gluten and sugar free.

It looked delicious on the web and had lots of comments saying it was the best banana bread ever. I was sold.

Once baked, it smelt good and looked good. Michael and I could not wait to taste it and watched each other as we took our first bite – and guess what? It was the biggest letdown since Dorret’s mousse flopped on the show on Wednesday night.

If I want to be healthy, I will simply eat a salad.