Contestant on 'The Great British Bake Off (TGBBO)' in 2013

Ruby Tandoh | Biography

Column Writer On The New Yorker, Taste, Eater, Vice, & Heated

• By Reena Chikanbanjar
• Update : January 23, 2022

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Ruby Tandoh is a British food writer and author. She rose to prominence as a contestant in the Season 4 of the baking competition reality television show The Great British Bake Off in 2013.

Who is Ruby Tandoh?

Ruby Tandoh is a pastry chef, recipe columnist, cookbook author, and food writer. She was born on 4 July 1991 in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. She was the eldest of four children of her parents. And she falls under the ethnicity of West African country Ghana, from her grandfather. 

Tandoh grew up excelling in her studies and wanting to go to college after high school. However, as she started college, she went through numerous breakdowns and indecisive choices, making her change college multiple times. And while studying, she briefly worked as a model and eventually developed a passion for baking. 

On the How To Fail Podcast, she talked about studies and her reason for failing to get a degree. She shared that she briefly stayed at a mental home to recover from her self-destructive behaviors. In addition, throughout her college process and changing, her parents did not object to her decisions and gave her freedom of choice. She further added that, although her mom was pressured by her own mother to get a college degree, her parents did not force her even after being the first child. But that led her to pressure herself and spiral down to admissions.  

Reminiscing her college decisions and subsequent relationship with her parents, Tandoh said, "...I've never had any pressure from my parents to kind of do or be anything in particular. I think my mom felt a bit pressured from her mom, growing up about, you know, how she should perform, what she should do and what kind of jobs she should get and things like that. And I think, she's been really really concisous of not passing that on, maybe to her fault because I kind of very much left to forge my own path. I've never really had anyone say, okay, c'mon you can't quit this again, let us get you to stick with this one thing. I've never had that..."

'The Great British Bake Off' 

Subsequently, Tandoh was a first-year student at the University of London when she partook in the fourth series of the baking show The Great British Bake Off in 2013 and became one of the finalists. She was only 21 years old when she joined the show. When it aired, she got multiple criticisms regarding her non-conventional female-like attitude. On the How To Fail Podcast, she also said that it took her a long time to process and accept the reactions she received from the show. She mentioned that it took a toll on her self-worth and eventually led her to hide her genuine emotions so that people do not judge her. 

After the show, she continued working on food-related content. She wrote for the Guardian and occasionally contributed articles for several publications, including The New Yorker, Taste, Eater, Vice, and Heated. 

Furthermore, she released several cookbooks, her first cookbook titled 'Crumb: The Baking Book' in 2014. Her second cookbook, 'Flavour: Eat What You Love' was released in 2016, and her third cookbook, 'Eat Up!: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want' was published in 2018. On 10 June 2020, she announced on Instagram that she would be writing another cookbook called 'COOK AS YOU ARE: Recipes for Real Life, Hungry Cooks, and Messy Kitchens.' The book was later published on 7 October 2021.

Wife Bio and Wedding

Tandoh met her future wife Leah Pritchard on Tinder in 2015. After dating for a couple of years, they got engaged in January 2017. They ultimately got married on 31 August 2018 at a low-key ceremony at the local cinema, Abbeydale Picture House, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, surrounded by their friends and family. 

On their wedding day, Tandoh flaunted a simple cream Kaftan style dress and open-toe sandals and carried a white flower bouquet. Pritchard wore a stylish navy blue suit with a colorful printed shirt, yellow pocket square, and tan brogues. Tandoh later changed into a short silver sequin dress for the wedding reception. The pair cut a three-tiered sponge wedding cake covered with multi-colored icing. They also dance together at their reception ceremony at Abbeydale Picture House. 

Tandoh's wife is a guitarist who played in a now-defunct musical band named Alimony Hustle. In 2018, Pritchard was training to be a psychotherapist.

Controversy

Though Tandoh rose to fame after appearing on The Great British Bake Off in 2013, she also gained some notoriety as she was accused of flirting with the show's judge Paul Hollywood to make it to the finals. Hollywood was also accused of giving Tandoh preferential treatment due to her pretty appearance. 

In April 2015, she publicly came out as bisexual on her Twitter and joked that her coming out would hit out at people who had accused her of flirting with Hollywood. Posting a link to Diana Ross's song titled 'I'm Coming Out,' she captioned, "Me to my parents today. Feeling lucky and joyful and free. Over and Out. And to all the bros who hate social media, who pit it against 'real life'… I never would've had courage to be me without Twitter's queer queens. P.S. For those who thought I fancied Paul Hollywood or that I'd ever bang him to get ahead… joke's on you, you massive s****ing misogynists."