Lisa Faulkner has said winning Celebrity MasterChef completely changed her life – because it gave her another career and a new boyfriend.

The actress was crowned queen of the kitchen in 2010, and in 2012 began dating one of the show’s judges, John Torode, but said she had never expected to do well at cooking.

She said: “I took on three jobs at the same time as MasterChef, thinking I would only be in it for a day, and I ended up in it until the end. That was amazing in itself.

“It completely changed my life and I haven’t stopped cooking since. It’s been amazing, really.”

Lisa Faulkner John Torode
Lisa Faulkner and John Torode are now dating (Ian West/PA)

But she said that despite John being a terrifying judge on the BBC programme, he didn’t put her off cooking in front of him at home.

She explained: “Somebody said, ‘So what’s it like at home when you’re both cooking?’ It’s just like we’re both cooking! It’s not like he’s going, ‘Oh, you need to do that’, or, ‘Hurry Lisa, you’ve got five minutes!’.”

Tea And Cake by Lisa Faulkner, published in hardback by Simon & Schuster Ltd, is out now, priced at £20.