Why Jodie Kidd's been curling up in bed with Delia and Amanda Burton's been weeping into her hollandaise sauce. Meet the contestants of Celebrity MasterChef

• Celebrity MasterChef returns on Tuesday with some unexpected contestants
• Model, Jodie Kidd and stylist Susannah Constantine are amongst the unlikely chefs
• Jodie admits that she didn't have a pudding for 15 years while modelling

By Jenny Johnston for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:30 EDT, 6 June 2014 | Updated: 17:39 EDT, 6 June 2014

Jodie Kidd - ex-model, racing car driver, show-jumper, socialite - is talking about what she gets up to in bed. Sometimes, she says, she scares herself with her antics. Blimey.

Actually, it's a less athletic (and certainly less racy) conversation than you might imagine. The chat is about soufflés, and how to make the perfect pastry and, er, why she prefers to slip under the covers with Delia Smith rather than Heston Blumenthal.

'I've been sleeping with cookery books,' she admits, presumably disappointing her male admirers everywhere. 'I've been taking them to bed, immersing myself in them, to the point of being quite scary.'

Leslie Ash, Jodie Kidd, Susannah Constantine and Amanda Burton are contestants in this year's Celebrity MasterChef

No prizes then for guessing that her latest venture is perhaps the most unlikely of all - signing up as a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef. Is Jodie, 35, a closet foodie? If so you'd never guess it. This is a woman who defined heroin chic, after all, and was famously (if cruelly) described as a 'sick anorexic giraffe'.

Today, she's the one who brings up the subject of how models don't eat much, admitting that her bakery skills are lacking 'because I didn't eat a pudding for 15 years while I was modelling'.

But she says that following the birth of her son Indio three years ago, she started to 'mess about in the kitchen' for the first time. 'I found that I wanted to make him something a bit more ambitious than fishfingers, so started cooking properly.' Now she describes herself as a woman obsessed.

This year contains some unlikely foodies such as famously slender model, Jodie Kidd and stylish Susannah Constantine

'I'd always loved food, and as a model you travel around so I was exposed to all sorts of different flavours, but when it comes to actually cooking I am very much the underdog in this competition,' she admits when Weekend catches up with some of this year's contestants.

'Some of the others have been cooking for years - especially the older ones who have been feeding their families for much longer than I have. But I've hurled everything I've got at this.

'When I said yes, I did have a moment of panic when I realised how much I didn't know. But I sat my mum - who is a brilliant cook - down and said "teach me everything". Before, I'd sit in the kitchen while she was doing it all, chatting and pouring her a glass of wine. I might have stirred the pot occasionally, but that was about it. It's been quite a bonding experience, actually.'

Jodie has received some cruel jibes in the past being described as 'a sick anorexic giraffe' and Susannah admits that, in the nicest way possible, she joined the show to escape Trinny

Also offering tips has been Rachel Carpenter, Jodie's childhood nanny and housekeeper and a woman she describes as 'the matriarch of the family'. She is 84 now, but has worked for the family since she was 18, and still lives with Jodie.

'Rachel is amazing. She's got a kitchen garden and potters around growing organic veg, and she's a whizz in the kitchen. I've been standing beside her watching, but the trouble with Rachel is that she doesn't weigh anything out, she just shoves it all in.'

Actually, it may be that Jodie's just a natural in the kitchen because several of the other MasterChef celebs single her out as one to watch in the competition. 'I think she's the dark horse,' says Susannah Constantine (the half of Trinny and Susannah that isn't Trinny). 'She's one of those people that gets it.'

So what's Susannah, 51, doing in the MasterChef melee? Trying to escape Trinny - in the nicest possible way, she admits.

'We'd always been offered these types of shows before, and the money kept going up and up, but we turned them down. I mean, why would you do these things? But MasterChef was different. For the first time, it was a show where you'd learn a skill that was useful.

The ladies promise plenty of drama on the show that starts next week

Amanda Burton says that there were occasions on the program when she cracked under pressure and Leslie Ash says that she joined the show to challenge the public's 'tragic' perception of her

'Strictly is good, but you don't do ballroom dancing every day. And Dancing On Ice? Hello? Where would I come across an ice rink? It was also the first one I'd been offered without Trinny and it was appealing - if scary.'

They are still big mates, and speak every day, but not entirely honestly, it seems. 'Darling Trin has been phoning me up every day during filming to ask what I was wearing. It's a good job she couldn't see me. Mostly I was wearing filthy jeans and Ugg boots. It's been the most liberating thing to be able to look like a pile of ****.'

Trinny and Susannah never seemed the foodie types either, although since Trinny has been stepping out with Charles Saatchi she's been eating a lot in Scott's, the Mayfair restaurant that became infamous after Saatchi was pictured there with his hand around his then-wife Nigella's throat.

But Susannah won't be drawn on the relationship between Saatchi and Trinny. 'I don't want to talk about it, but she's very happy' is as far as she goes.

CELEBRITY MASTERCHEF: PAST CHAMPIONS AND THEIR WINNING DISHES

2006 Former England rugby captain Matt Dawson

Salmon carpaccio with scallion pancakes, sea bass with a spicy tamarind broth and almond and pear tart.

2007 Actress Nadia Sawalha

Roasted quail with pistachio and orange water sauce, seabass with tahini sauce and saffron rice, aniseed biscuits with rosewater ice cream.

2008 Former Atomic Kitten singer Liz McClarnon

Prosciutto-wrapped scallops, deconstructed beef wellington with oxtail, and sticky toffee crème brûlée.

2009 TV presenter Jayne Middlemiss

Seared scallops on apple purée, pan-fried veal with truffle potatoes, lavender panna cotta and crystallised violets.

2010 Actress Lisa Faulkner

Goat's cheese and red onion tartlet,  monkfish with butternut squash fondant and almond panna cotta with poached tamarillos.

2011 Former rugby player Phil Vickery

Scallops with black pudding, lamb with carrots and fondant potatoes, orange and chocolate bread and butter pudding.

2012 Writer Emma Kennedy

Pea, mint and ricotta ravioli with pancetta butter, pan-fried turbot with samphire, poached meringue in crème anglaise with almond praline.

2013 Comedian and actor Ade Edmondson

Pan-seared loin of venison, sea bass stuffed with scallop mousse and a twist on strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Can either of them cook? 'I've always been a pretty good social cook,' she says. 'The kitchen is the heart of the home and I'm always dancing around in there with the kids (she has three, aged 15, 13 and ten). Trinny doesn't cook as much, but she's perfectly capable. She does the best salad.'

So what other celebs are in the running this year? As well as Jodie and Susannah, there's the usual mix of talent among the 20 contestants. Soap actors are well represented, with ex-EastEnder Todd Carty and former Corrie stars Tina Hobley and Ken Morley.

Millie Mackintosh of Made In Chelsea 'fame' is there, as are dancer Wayne Sleep, astrologer Russell Grant and singer Kiki Dee. So too are presenter Tania Bryer, JLS member JB Gill and Four Weddings And A Funeral actress Sophie Thompson - sister of Emma. Whisper it, but it's Sophie who has impressed her fellow contestants. Susannah says she's an 'angel with pastry'.

Another surprising contestant, though, is actress Leslie Ash, 54, once the darling of the TV schedules but now someone whose name is usually prefixed with 'tragic' in the tabloids. Her appearance on MasterChef, she admits, is an attempt to challenge that idea.

'If people are surprised to see me on it - well good,' she says. The last decade hasn't exactly been kind to Leslie. There was the life-threatening medical nightmare in 2004 when, while being treated for a cracked rib and punctured lung, she was infected with the hospital superbug MSSA and it was feared she would never walk again.

She still needs a stick to walk long distances - and admits that she was worried she wouldn't be up to the physical challenges of working in a busy commercial kitchen, as the MasterChef contestants have to.

'I've surprised myself at how I managed it, I think,' she says. 'But one of the reasons I wanted to come on here was to show people that I'm fine.' She's upfront about the fact an appearance on something like MasterChef is as much about upping your public profile as learning some new recipes.

Rebuilding her career has been hard, she admits, pointing out that her dark years came just at the point many actresses are already struggling to get roles and feeling invisible on telly.

'It is a difficult enough business, so it couldn't have happened at a worse time,' she admits.

'But I have adapted. I've moved on. When MasterChef asked me, I was delighted because I knew it was a chance to show what I could do, rather than dwell on what I couldn't. And the lovely thing for me was that none of the judges made any allowances. I was just another contestant, judged on my cooking.'

She has clearly had her down days, but says watching the Paralympics was an eye-opener. 'You can't watch that and feel sorry for yourself,' she says. 'So what if I need my stick sometimes? My body is stronger than it was and I understand it better now. I know how to make it work.'

Does she know about food? She did run a restaurant with her husband, ex-footballer Lee Chapman, but given that they were known, in their heyday, as Leeds' answer to Posh and Becks, this doesn't bode well.

'I am OK,' she smiles. 'I've had my fair share of disasters though. My kids still laugh about the day I forgot to put flour in my Yorkshire puddings and they oozed all over the oven - but we've always eaten well, as a family. I do love my food.'

Another unlikely MasterChef participant is actress Amanda Burton, the former star of Peak Practice and Silent Witness. Known for her Ice Queen expressions (her eyebrow raising in Silent Witness is still a classic), she's hardly the sort of woman you can imagine going on a reality-type TV show. And the idea of Amanda, 57, ever weeping into her hollandaise sauce is unthinkable.

Yet, she insists this is exactly what MasterChef has reduced her to. 'It's embarrassing, but yes, I've had the odd blub,' she admits, hooting with laughter when I suggest people will expect her, of all the contestants, to be cool under pressure.

'I can tell you that absolutely isn't the case. Mostly, being on MasterChef is all about feeling quite out of control. You can't help getting flustered. And there's potential for massive humiliation.'

The mother of two grown-up daughters, Amanda says that while she always loved cooking, she never really had the time to indulge her passion when her kids were young. 'I always cooked, and loved it - especially that sense of nurturing your family - but it wasn't exactly sophisticated cooking. When the opportunity to do this came along, I said "why not?". Maybe I wouldn't have before, but I made a resolution this year to try new things, and this seemed ideal.'

She seems surprised by how gripped she has been by the MasterChef mania, admitting that her increasingly frantic practice sessions at home have led to some mad midnight dashes around London with her boyfriend Tim, in the hunt for ingredients.

'There have been quite a few that seemed like Laurel & Hardy sketches, with Tim at the wheel and me running out to various supermarkets. But it happens like that, you get completely gripped. Everyone wants to win - even if they don't think they're ambitious going into it.'

Celebrity MasterChef starts on Tuesday at 9pm on BBC1.