The first thing I ever baked at school was supposed to be an apple pie, but turned into a gooey lump of dough with a molten mess in the middle, because my ‘partner’ forgot to put the oven on.

This was when home economics classes were still ‘girls only’ – oh God, am I really that old? – and the most exotic thing we got to make was scrambled egg with chives.

You had to work in twos (hence the Great Oven Fail) and generally, you went home covered in flour with singed fingers and you never, ever saw the recipes again.

(Sewing wasn’t much better. There was never enough time, and the teacher was always harassed, so for a while I had a collection of half-finished garments stuffed in the back of my chest of drawers on the pretext that I would get round to finishing them ‘later’. Never did.)

As the glorious Great British Bake Off returns to our screens tonight, I am celebrating the fact that today’s home economics classes are much, much better.

My 12-year-old son comes home with an excellent array of tasty dishes – pitta pizzas, apple crumble and proper custard, truffles, mini-burgers- which we all get to try together on a Monday night.

My favourite so far has been his Anzac biscuits, a crumbly concoction of oats and golden syrup which he has made a couple of times at home since. But generally everything has looked great and – crucially – has been edible too, unlike my apple pie.

This is very good news, on all fronts. Life skill being learned, another useful pair of hands in the kitchen, lots of tasty goodies for us to eat on a weekly basis.

I’m a much better baker myself too, regularly rustling up birthday cakes for my boys, cupcakes and shortbread for the school fair and I even volunteer for a local charity, Free Cakes for Kids, which help out families in need.

I’d never make it on to the Bake Off, of course, but my birthday cake in the shape of a giant, blue number six, complete with an icing frog on a lily pad and a little rainbow fish, was a triumph. (That was a particularly tough brief that year).

So bring it on, Paul and Mary. I'll be watching.....