I have to crouch a little as I step down inside, where it is deceivingly big, it almost feels like I am walking into another realm.

But I’m not, I’m walking into Rickmansworth's most notorious bakery, Cinnamon Square. Opened by Paul Barker and his wife Tricia in 2005, it has since accumulated a collection of awards including in the World Bread Awards 2015, BIA Innovation Awards 2014, National Cupcake Championship 2013 and Baking Industry Awards across the separate years.

Paul had been baking for thirty years before opening. “We were in the Waffle House in St Albans and had a lightbulb moment” he tells me. “We thought we could sell some nice things and we could teach, that was the whole point of Cinnamon Square, to teach adults and children to bake.”

Paul started off working in craft bakeries in Hertfordshire before moving to the Flour, Milling and Baking Research Association in Chorleywood, famed for the Chorleywood bread process through which the majority of bread is made.

It was in this role that Paul “got the buzz for the science” behind a really good bake, which he shares with you in his debut book A Measured Approach.

“We’ve been trying to get it published for quite a few years now. This is very different to your everyday baking book. We have tried and tested recipes, plus all the tips and tricks that I know home bakers need to be successful at home.”

I ask him to share his top tips with me ahead of the talk. “We have lots in the book,” he laughs, before telling me: “My ethos is all about the Measured Approach. Within that, one of the biggest things that cause inconsistency in home baking comes from the weighing of ingredients. All my recipes are in grams, which is really specific compared to an ounce.

“If you have a recipe asking for cups and spoons, each scoop that is levelled off and weighed will be different quantities. If you were twenty grams short in a recipe, for me when I make big recipes that’s no big deal – but we’re still precise – at home 20 grams could be five or ten percent of your recipe. That’s significant.

“I always say that before you start you should read the recipe a couple of times and then pre-weigh your ingredients, everything, ready to go. Then all you have to do is follow the steps and then everything will be so much clearer.”

With an array of awards under his belt and such a successful business you can’t help but trust his method, especially when you discover yet another claim to fame.

It turns out Paul played a pretty large part in the creative process of the Great British Bake Off.

“I was at the planning of the show and the technical challenge was my idea. In the meetings they said what they wanted to do and had some bakers come in to offer advice and input.

"One of the things I was conscious of was anyone can write in and say what they can do, but when you’ve got somebody who really does bake at home, if you give them a recipe but not all the information you are then really stretching that person and you will see which person really does make lots of things.”