Lorraine Pascale

Lorraine Pascale is best known as a British television chef, who has sold almost one million cookery books in the UK alone. Born in Hackney in London, she was fostered immediately after she was born and spent some time in foster homes as well as fostered by many different families, due to unprecedented reasons. By the young age of 16, she was spotted by an agent who scouted Naomi Campbell and soon after moved to New York to begin her modeling career. Lorraine went on to represent top designers including Chanel, Versace, and Donna Karen and achieved international recognition when she appeared on the cover of American Elle, being the first British black woman to do so. She later appeared in Sports Illustrated and has also featured in music videos. 

By 2005, she took a career U-turn and followed her passion for food by taking a course at the prestigious Leith School of Food and Wine and gaining a first-class degree in Culinary Arts at the University of West London. She soon after started to establish a name for herself in London as a specialist cake maker and started up her own cupcake shop in Convent Garden. Her career took off and she has now produced multi-award-winning books on baking and hosted many of her own successful TV series including, Home cooking made easy, A last-minute Christmas, and Fast, fresh and easy food.

Lorraine is also a mum to her daughter, Ella Balinska, 25, who is an English actress, best known for her role in the action-comedy film 2019; Charlie's Angels. After divorcing Ella's dad soon after her being born,  Lorraine has since found love again with businessman Dennis O’Brien and married him in June 2021. You will now find Lorraine either appearing on Saturday Kitchen, BBC Breakfast, Loose Women, or The One Show. She also enjoys writing food content for Vogue, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and Stylist magazine.

Throughout her career, Lorraine is the patron of TACT, which is the UK's largest fostering and adoption charity, and an ambassador of both the charities Rays of Sunshine and The Prince's Trust. She says that her love for cooking and turning her career around was the best thing she has ever done. Her famous Malteasers cheesecake and big fat carrot cake are just some of our favourite Lorraine Pascale recipes.