The 2022 line-up for Cooking With the Stars has been revealed and it's set to be a corker of a series.
The likes of Dame Kelly Holmes, Maura Higgins and Joe Wilkinson will don their aprons this summer as they pair up with a professional chef who will mentor, teach and take them from passionate amateur to restaurant level chefs.
Joining Kelly, Maura and Joe on the new six-part cooking competition will be TV personality Anton Du Beke, This Morning ’s Josie Gibson and Chaser Anne Hegerty.
TV expert Dr Ranj Singh and DJ Woody Cook will also be put through their paces, completing the 2022 line-up.
Emma Willis and Tom Allen will be back to host the second season of the hit ITV cookery show.
The second season of the hit ITV show will see the celebs compete across a series of cooking battles as they are trained by their mentor chefs to produce delicious dishes that will be judged by the remaining professionals.
The bottom two will then have to fight for their place in the competition, creating a dish without any help from their mentor.
The result of this eliminator will be decided by a blind tasting judgement from the professional chefs. Unaware of whose food they are tasting, their greatest supporter could swiftly and unwittingly become their worst critic and vote for their protégé to leave the competition.
This year’s mentor chefs include some of the biggest names in the culinary world.
British chef and TV presenter Rosemary Shrager will be partnered with Anton Du Beke. Renowned chef and business owner Ronnie Murray will pair up with Dame Kelly Holmes.
Chef director Jack Stein will mentor Love Island ’s Maura Higgins. Korean chef and restaurateur Judy Joo will be guiding funnyman Joe Wilkinson. Michelin Starred French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli will be teamed with Anne Hegerty.
Scottish chef and restaurateur Tony Singh MBE will be partnered with Josie Gibson. Author and regular chef on This Morning Clodagh McKenna will coach Dr Ranj Singh, and restaurateur and TV personality Mike Reid will train Woody Cook.
Ahead of the series kicking off, Emma Willis has revealed her excitement and anticipation to get back in the kitchen.
She said: “Tom and I had so much fun last series and I’m looking forward to getting back into the kitchen. The pressure the celebs are under is real and once the competition starts heating up everybody wants to win, but I’m hoping there isn’t as much blood as last series!”
While Tom Allen added: “Last series was so exciting! Emma Willis and I have been polishing our frying pans in preparation – we have so much fun working together.
“The celebrities are being trained by some of the best chefs in the business and with the clock ticking it’s always tense to see if they’ll improve their cooking enough each week to measure up to the judges’ high standards.”
With the line-up confirmed, lets take a look at who our budding chefs are ahead of the 2022 series…
Dr Ranj Singh
Self-confessed desert fiend and paediatric A&E and intensive care doctor Ranj is looking forward to applying his adventurous nature to his cooking.
But the busy medic doesn’t have time for cooking and has been a ‘grab and go’ guy for as long as he can remember.
Ahead of the series, Ranj explained: “I love food, I absolutely love food and I love going out to eat. I love trying different things and I’m quite adventurous when it comes to food. I love doing different things and trying different flavours, but I have never really done the other side of it.
“I just never have the time. I live by myself so there isn’t really anyone to cook for. It takes some joy out of it and because I am so busy, food has to be a convenient thing. Grab and go, I always say food is functional.
“But I wanted to learn the art of cooking and enjoy the making side of it. To have the opportunity to be trained by an expert, of course I would take that!”
Because of his high pressured job, Ranj came into the experience thinking he knows how to get a job done when he’s in a tense environment, but that hasn’t proved to be the case.
He explained: “I know how to get the job done when I am pressured because that’s what I do, I work in A&E and Intensive care with kids. I know how to be structured, methodical and get it done.
“But this is completely different. I thought I was going to be able to use that. I have found myself getting flustered, getting nervous. I think the big difference here is that I am completely out of my comfort zone.
“When I am pressured in an intense environment when it is my profession and job, that’s different. I know I have got my fall back. I have got my methods, I have got my safety mechanisms that I can fall back on.
“Here I have none of that so I am very much relying on what Clodagh has told me. I am very much relying on my own instincts which I am still developing. I am flying by the seat of my pants a bit here and that’s completely clear.”
Dr Ranj will be mentored by Clodagh McKenna who he’s described as “perfect” and revealed she’s getting more and more competitive throughout their training.
Josie Gibson
Bubbly This Morning personality Josie Gibson is used to putting a smile on our faces with her hilarious telly antics, but she’s not likely to make you giggle with her cooking.
She may only have one saucepan in her kitchen but she's determined to broaden her horizon and learn to cook up some delicious meals for her three-year-old son Reg and her friends.
The presenter revealed: “I thought I was OK [at cooking] and then I was with a professional and I realised I’m not. I make a lot of things from packets, I just didn’t realise.”
Josie is proud of her roast dinner but as her to rustle up an Indian mean and she doesn’t have a clue.
“I’ve been so busy I’ve lost my love of cooking and I’ve just forgot so I want to get that back. It’s very rare that I sit down with Reg and have a cooked meal as we go out a lot because it’s only me and him.
“I wanted to fall back in love with cooking again and I want to be able to invite all my friends over and cook a badass meal.
“I want to broaden my horizons and I want to pick up lots of skills from the chefs. I was going to put myself on a cooking course anyway and now I’m being mentored by one of the best chefs in the country Tony Singh MBE.
“I want to learn how to cook Indian food so I couldn’t have been paired with anybody better and I like spicy food.”
Josie is being trained by Tony Singh, who she says is strict but has a “lovely energy”. He’s met her family and friends and been round to her house for dinner.
“He is really kind, he is lovely to be around, he is so funny and he has got a really good sense of humour but what I love about Tony is he loves food, he respects his food and he does everything with love and respect.
“I invited all my friend’s around and when he was in Bristol he came round as well.”
She didn’t make him cook but she did order an Indian takeaway as there were so many people – which Tony wasn’t too impressed about.
Dame Kelly Holmes
Double Olympic Champion Dame Kelly Holmes may be one of the UK's most popular athletes and respected throughout the world for her athletic ability, but the runner isn’t winning any medals for her cooking skills.
Her guilty pleasure is marmite and honey on toast under the grill and she’s keen to broaden her horizons.
She got the chance to cook more during “because of course I was forced too”
“I love flavours and I like to see what’s in my cupboards and fridge and make something out of it,” she explained. “ I really enjoy that to be honest. I’m not a chef and I’m not a cook at all but I was getting into it.”
“So, I was being a bit more creative with things. I had cider vinegar and wine vinegar and I’ve never used those things before so I was just making things up which I actually really enjoyed.”
Kelly wanted to do the show to learn something completely new, away from her day job of motivational speaking and fitness.
Dame Kelly is teamed up with Ronnie Murray for the competition and he’s already taught her some chef wisdom.
“The chefs tell you to use your senses, so your smell and taste. When Ronnie gives me a recipe he says if I don’t think it tastes good enough then I need to put in more of what I like.
“Ronnie says go with your flavour palette because if you really like it and you are into flavours then you can’t really go wrong, well unless you put a ton of garlic in and it blows the judges heads off! That’s good as I do like flavours and I can tell when something is disgusting.”
Anne Hegerty
Chaser Anne Hegerty said no to taking part in the show.
The former I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! contestant revealed: “I said no. I said you are kidding. I have an agent who is very good at working out what sort of things I should do and what sort of things the public would like to see me in.
“He is very bad at taking no for an answer so, basically, I got leaned on to do it. I did an interview recently with Kelly Holmes and her answer to that question was ‘I believe in pushing myself, challenging myself and expanding the boundaries of what I can do’ and my answer was ‘my agent made me do it’.”
Anne confessed she has absolutely no flair for cooking, no palette and absolutely hates spicy food. She doesn’t know that she’s looking for when she’s asked to taste food and she had no idea if what she’s tasting is what it is supposed to be or not.
The quiz master’s cooking skills extend to “putting on a pan of rice with some frozen vegetables and then I’ll make some sort of stew or stir-fry or something”.
But thankfully Anne is being mentored by the great Jean-Christophe Novelli who, Anne says, is very patient with her and understands she learns by reading rather than doing.
She explained: “I was frantically taking notes and he was saying ‘do you understand’ and I was like ‘I don’t yet know if I understand, I’ll have to get back to my notes and read them and then I will know if I understand this’.
“He is very patient, very supportive and encouraging. He keeps saying if I win, he will take me to Paris, he is a lovely guy.”
Anne isn’t competitive but wants to do well for her mentor. She said: “I just don’t want to disappoint Jean-Christophe because he has tried so hard with such unpromising material and I just don’t want him to feel like he was wasting his time.”
Anton Du Beke
Strictly Come Dancing judge Anton Du Beke doesn’t cook – at all. He’s never cooked in his entire life.
The ballroom dancer baffled ITV producers when he told them this information. “That is difficult for the judges to comprehend and understand really,” he recalled. “When I said to producers I don’t cook they said ‘that’s fine but what’s your signature dish’ and I said ‘I don’t cook so I don’t have one’.”
He is teamed up with mentor Rosemary Shrager and revealed the first time he cooked anything was on the first morning of training with her. “It was the first time I’d been in a kitchen and cooked something with a pan on a stove,” he revealed.
“I ate out my entire life so I didn’t need to cook or have any desire to cook. Then suddenly you get older and I have a family now.
“My wife does all the cooking but it’s something I felt I’d like to do. During lockdown I had thoughts about wanting to learn to cook but I didn’t as I had no way of learning.
“When they offered me the opportunity to do this in a scenario that I love, it was really the situation that made me want to do the show. I love having lessons. I enjoy competition.”
With Rosemary by Anton is in safe hands. “Rosemary is brilliant, she is hilarious, great and funny. She is perfect, she is exactly the one I would have wanted.”
But even with is hand held by one of the best in the business, he hasn’t avoided come cooking disasters.
“I’ve stabbed myself in the finger and I’ve grated my knuckle so I’ve had a couple of blue plasters,” he explained.
His lack of any experience is proving difficult as he found out while attempting to make caramel.
“I was making caramel, boiling down the water and the sugar to make caramel, bearing in mind I haven’t done this before. I put the sugar in the saucepan, put the water in and put it on the heat and the sugar melted.
“I thought while the sugar melts it will start to turn brown but it didn’t, if anything, it stayed clear. So, I’m looking at this bubbling water and thinking, this is going to burn as this must be sticking to the pan and they said don’t whisk it. The thing you need is experience.
“So, it’s not that I needed experience of making crème caramel, it was that I don’t have any experience of anything. So, this is the tricky part of not having any experience to fall back on.”
Although he has zero experience of cooking, Anton does have a secret weapon to fall back on. He was a baker many moons ago.
“I was a baker years ago when I was a boy. I finished as a skilled baker which is the closest I’ve ever been to cooking.
“The difference between baking and cooking is with baking everything is done before it goes into the oven, whereas cooking it seems to me that it only starts to get interesting when you start to put it onto the heat otherwise it’s just chopping up stuff and preparing stuff.
“With baking you can’t taste, once it goes into the oven if it's not right it's not right, you’ve had it. If it comes out with a soggy bottom it’s a disaster but with cooking you taste and taste and taste so you can save something, you can’t do that with baking.
“Although they are both in the kitchen, they are both very different skills.”
Maura Higgins
Former Love Island star Maura Higgins has always enjoyed cooking but never attempted to cook anything from scratch. Her signature dish is Bolognese – out of a jar. And her guilty pleasure is pizza with plain cheese and jalapenos.
She’d give herself a two out of five for her cooking skills ahead of her training with mentor Jack Stein – who’s given her free reign to text him for tips and recipes at any time.
The former ring girl is very competitive but doesn’t rate her chances of winning. She explained her self doubt: “I think it's probably because you're making things from scratch, like making mayonnaise from scratch, I wouldn’t have the first clue and I am thinking that I don’t work too well under pressure, so that could go against me.”
Perfectionist Maura also doesn’t handle pressure very well. “I like to take my time when I’m doing something and because I’m such a perfectionist I hate to rush anything,” she said.
The reality star has had some painful mishaps in the kitchen during training. She’s cut her fingers while learning to chop and “got loads of different hot spices in my eye in training. I was making the Indian dish and a lump of spice hit my eye and honestly the pain of it was quite crucial.”
Joe Wilkinson
Comedian and actor Joe Wilkinson likes to eat whole oxo cubes. He doesn’t “go looking” for them, but if they’re there, he’ll eat it.
“Just the cube and not dipped in water. I love it. I think when people read this they’ll start eating them whole too,” he said.
Aside from his strange eating habits, Joe does well under pressure but finds his memory is his downfall. “I’ve not got a great memory, that's the problem,” he explained.
"I’m hoping that I don’t walk away from this and don’t remember a single thing they’ve taught me, that’s the worry although, I can always watch the show back to remind myself, it’s a win-win.”
The funnyman would rate his cooking skills at a two out of five as he’s made some serious blunders in training.
“I make major mistakes, that's my thing,” he said. “I put salt in the pastry instead of sugar. It tasted awful. It did add to it but not in a positive way. I’ve made some awful mistakes. It’s under pressure though, isn’t it?”
His family and friends have confessed they’re not holding out much hope for Joe winning the competition.
“My missus thought I was a fish out of water. She didn’t think I’d get very far, and rightly so she has lived with me for a very long time. If she is expecting me to cook every night after the show, she will be sorely disappointed.”
Woody Cook
DJ Woody Cook wants to prove he’s worthy of his surname and push himself out of his comfort zone.
He confessed he couldn’t cook before the show. “I think cooking is an important skill that I need to learn. When else will I get an opportunity to learn how to cook, have a great time doing it, challenge myself, push my boundaries and maybe prove my surname, can Woody Cook?”
He may only be able to make scrambled eggs and rates his cooking skills at a zero but Woody is determined to be able to make something for his family at Christmas at the end of the competition.
“Everyone usually makes something. Usually, I just make a fool of myself. So maybe I’d be able to feed someone.”
He’s like to use his skills to improve his dating life too: “Let’s say some girl comes round and she says, ‘can you cook me something?’ before I’d be like, ‘what takeaway would you like’ now I’ll be like, ‘yeah I can, I can cook you several dishes.’
“I make a good breakfast. Any other meal, I’m not your guy.”
But Woody does have a secret weapon. He explained: “I really like food. When I’m travelling and stuff, I never eat in the same place twice, I always try new things. When I’m in uni I eat what’s cheapest.
“I do love food and my secret weapon in the competition is I can taste what’s right and what’s wrong, which I’m going to use to my advantage.”
But Woody does have some questionable eating habits. His guilty pleasure is hummus… with everything.
“I microwave rice, baked bean, then hummus, pesto, fried mushrooms, nuts, fried peppers, all in the same bowl. It makes these gorgeous textures and its creamy, warm and filling. You’ve got your proteins, you’ve got everything.
“Everyone goes, ‘what the hell have you made?’ But it's gorgeous. If I didn’t tell them what I’d made, they try it, they’re like ‘wow that’s really nice ’, the second I tell them what’s in it they’ll never eat it again.
“It tastes glorious but I think I hate people’s conceptions of what’s alright to do and what’s not alright to do. People should base it on taste. If you did a blind taste you’d be like, ‘that’s gorgeous’.
“I used to put a green tea bag in my coffee. Separate flavour from what you think should go together. No one ever made new recipes without trying something different.”
