Nadiya Hussain is telling me about her first cookery show, performed to her brothers and sisters until they got bored, and then her teddy bears.

Fast forward to summer 2017 and Nadiya's British Food Adventure is about to kick off. She has finally got her wish and is heading up a prime time eight part bonafide cookery show for the BBC starting on Monday which takes the Bake Off winner on a culinary road trip around Britain.

Not only that, come autumn and she will be presenting the Big Family Cooking Showdown, to rival Ch4s new Bake Off format, alongside Zoe Ball, as 16 families compete in their own homes.

Quite a journey then for the shy muslim girl who only applied to Bake Off to try to boost her own self-confidence.

“It’s been exciting and scary at the same time because in Bake Off I could hide behind the other contestants while now it's just me up talking to the screen, and being a presenter is very different and a massive learning curve. Talking to people and cooking was the easy bit. Sometimes it's a bit overwhelming, but I can't keep still so I love being busy."

So how did she manage? “I pretended I was talking to my teddies again," she laughs "just like I did when I was a child and it worked. So that's what I do for the camera, perform for them.”

No irony there then. " I know,” she laughs. "I didn't realise what it was I wanted to do until I was actually doing it and then I thought, oh. But if I’d ever assumed this is where I would be, it would have been too presumptuous.

“I didn't dare think I'd be doing half the things I'd be doing now."

And how is her newfound success going down at home? "Nothing's changed really. The kids aren't interested in cookery shows. They are 10, 9 and 6. It's just my job to them. And I'm home as much as ever so I've made sure there's a good balance - time for them, time for my husband. They don't see me working in my office when they are in bed or when they are at school. And if filming does ever take me away, I make sure it's for three days and then I get four days at home.

“For me it's all about the balance. So the second they are in the door I stop what I'm doing and turn back into a mum. Because with each decision I make and each new step I take, something changes for them too, so I hope they don't really notice the difference.”

And yet despite her candid nature, news of Nadiya's new cookery series, provoked a flurry of interviews and articles about her muslim faith, arranged marriage and views on politics and racism, and very little about cookery which is what she is truly passionate about, which must grate?

“It's who I am. I'm a mix. I'm a mum, I'm a wife, I'm a muslim, I'm Bangladeshi and British, and that's what I want to reflect in my cookery.

“The fun is in realising that. So I'm not making an active decision to say 'this is who I am', but it is who I am. I just want to cook and that's what comes naturally.

“But I'm not taking all these new roles on to show or prove anything but to challenge myself. That's what I like to do – to scare the living daylights out of me. I don't think you can grow as a person otherwise, so if I don't think I can do something, I'll do it anyway and my cooking is the same, a take on that a twist here or there, that's just how I cook.

"Like coming to the Oxford Playhouse," she says swiftly turning the conversation around, when Nadiya will be in conversation with Barney Desmazery, Senior food Editor at BBC Good Food Magazine, about her life and adventures with food.

"It's so flattering" she grins. “I'm always amazed that anyone turns up at all, and this will be a new audience so it's exciting. I always get butterflies before I do anything like this whether it's my cookery shows, appearing at festivals or this, but it's challenging, and I like that. I love the buzz.”

Her corresponding book British Food Adventure follows suit, nothing predictable then? “No I think people expect me to write about Bangladeshi cooking or cakes, but that's not what I cook at home. I might have been brought up that way but my children eat a massive variety of dishes and I wanted to reflect that. I cook anything and everything across as many cultures as possible at home and I write the way I cook. It's who I am."

So at what point at did Nadiya know that her old life as she knew it was over? "When my new life had already taken over," she laughs.

And does she eat all the things in her books, the chips with blue cheese, the hot cookie dough and ice cream? “Yes, that's the problem because the more I eat the more I have to work out so it turns into a circle of madness,” she says with a shout of laughter. “But exercise helps clear my head. It's not just about staying in shape but in this weird world in the public eye it's good to go for a run and get away from it all or go home and clean the toilet.

“So yesterday I did just that and I really enjoyed it. Because it's all still a bit surreal sometimes, but when I need to come up for air and go ‘what happened?’, I just remember how lucky I am to have a job that I love and a lovely husband and three children to show for it.

“So it's a mad world that I've been thrust into and I still have to pinch myself, of course I do, but I have everything I love and I have balance. It’s the best case scenario.

"I just hope it doesn't end," she grins , because cooking is what I love doing".

IN CONVERSATION WITH NADIYA HUSSAIN: NADIYA’S BRITISH FOOD ADVENTURE, Wed July 19. 01865 305305. oxfordplayhouse.com