Nadiya Hussain
Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain cooking on the Super Theatre at the Cake and Bake Show at ExCeL in London Philip Toscano/ PA

Great British Bake Off champion Nadiya Hussain has revealed that she will not be forcing her children into arranged marriages because she needs to "move with the times".

Speaking to Good Housekeeping, the talented baker – who won the 2015 series of the cooking competition – recalled her own arranged marriage at the age of 19, insisting that she would instead allow her children to choose their own partners when the time comes.

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"You are pretty much marrying a complete stranger. We need to move with the times," the mother of three told the publication. "I don't think [my children] need me to find them a husband or a wife. They will do a better job than I will."

Opening up about the "tough" first few months of her arranged union with husband Abdal, she said: "You have to persevere and remember we are all human and all have faults. We had to live through the good and the bad, and have come out the other side."

Lucky for her, she did get her happily ever after, albeit a little unconventionally. "Love is strange... it creeps up on you and then smacks you in the face. I didn't know my husband, and then we had two children, and then I fell in love with him."

Hussain previously revealed that her father never pressured her into marrying a particular person and she spent six months getting to know her betrothed before their big day. "My dad always gave us options," she told Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 2016.

Since emerging victorious on Bake Off, Hussain has carved out a career as a columnist and baking expert and currently fronts the Nadiya's British Food Adventure on BBC Two. Despite her success, Hussain – who is a second generation British Bagledeshi−explained that her children Musa, Dawud and Maryam would be independent and self-sufficient.

"They won't be living with me when they're 18 – I've got a cruise to go on," she revealed. "I don't give them pocket money for doing chores – I don't get paid to do the dishes, so they don't either."