\u201cI\u2019m just thrilled to be joining the team and all the new bakers to come. I wish the marvellous [former judge] Prue [Leith] all the best and am giddily grateful for the opportunity!\u201d<\/p>\n
Channel 4\u2019s chief content officer Ian Katz also shared his excitement about Lawson joining the show, Metro reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cNigella brings an incomparable combination of warmth, expertise and sophistication to the tent, and this summer\u2019s series will be as mouthwatering a prospect as her chocolate Guinness cake.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 66-year-old has previously been a judge on MasterChef Australia and starred in several advertisements for Kiwi chocolatiers Whittaker\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Whittaker\u2019s chief marketing manager Phillip Poole credited Lawson with elevating the brand\u2019s \u201cworld-class chocolate\u201d on the global stage.<\/p>\n
Her debut into the world of the Great British Bake Off excited fans in the comments, who also shared their sadness at losing previous judge Dame Prue Leith.<\/p>\n
Leith recently stepped down from her role after nine seasons on the show, having taken over from the iconic Dame Mary Berry in 2016.<\/p>\n
She said while Bake Off had been a \u201cfabulous\u201d part of her life, it was time to move on.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow feels like the right time to step back (I\u2019m 86, for goodness\u2019 sake!), there\u2019s so much I\u2019d like to do, not least spend summers enjoying my garden.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reacting to the news of Lawson\u2019s casting, Leith praised her replacement as \u201csassy, fun and she knows her onions \u2013 and her croissants, cake and crumble\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m just thrilled to be joining the team and all the new bakers to come. I wish the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[806,42581,1558,14801,2223,156,16773,6371,3958,47525,117,111,10511,139,146838,69,6662,146839,223],"class_list":["post-253516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-as","tag-bake","tag-been","tag-british","tag-confirmed","tag-entertainment","tag-great","tag-joins","tag-judge","tag-lawson","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newest","tag-newzealand","tag-nigella","tag-nz","tag-off","tag-offs","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}