She won millions of fans on The Great British Bake Off with her bubbly personality and her tearful winner's acceptance speech and has gone on to become one of Britain's best-loved celebrity chefs.

Now Nadiya Hussain has been hailed as the most successful Bake Off contestant of all time in an analysis that ranked contestants based on cookbooks, social media influence, Google search volume, TV appearances and on-screen career length.

The personal finance experts money.co.uk did the number crunching in an examination of the performance of 24 winners and runners up from past Bake Off series.

Ms Hussain took the number one spot in the Celebrity Chef Credit Report scoring 91 out of 100, well in front of Candice Brown (76.5), John Whaite (68), Edd Kimber (60) and Kim-Joy Hewlett (57).

Five years ago when she was a contestant on the sixth series of Bake Off, Ms Hussain's skills with cakes and loaves and her stylish appearance turned her into a new kind of role model.

She was young, modern, British and also a hijab-wearing Muslim woman of colour who grew up one of six children in a working-class Bangladeshi community in Luton and had an arranged marriage at the age of 20.

Her infectiously warm presence made a move into TV presenting a natural progression, and that is what allowed her to score highly in the new survey.

She has fronted several food programmes, including a BBC Two series called Nadiya's British Food Adventure, appeared in over 115 TV shows, became a guest presenter on Loose Women and wrote various newspaper columns.

In total, she has released seven cookbooks, in which Nadiya's Kitchen (2016), Nadiya’s Family Favourites (2018) and Time to Eat (2019) reached bestseller status.

One of the 35-year-old's biggest accolades to date was being selected to bake Queen Elizabeth's birthday cake when the monarch turned 90 in April 2016.

In 2016, she was named by Debrett's as one of the 500 most influential people in the UK and one expert on community cohesion said she had done 'more for British-Muslim relations than ten years of government policy'.

But on Twitter, where she has nearly 250,000 followers, she once admitted that she was getting racist abuse on a daily basis.

In second place is cooking wiz and fashion icon Candice Brown, scoring 76.5 out of 100 in the report.

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She left her job as a PE teacher to pursue a career in baking and during her time on bake-off she was named star baker three times, more than any other contestant in the series.

Since being crowned the winner of series seven - and the last winner of the BBC version of the show - she has landed the role as a columnist for The Times and released a cookbook featuring comfort food recipes.

In 2018 she took part in reality TV show Dancing on Ice as well as appearing in over 58 TV shows since winning her series of Bake Off.

Information about Candice is searched 26,000 times per month on Google and she has an avid 249,000 followers on Instagram.

Commenting on the results of the Celebrity Chef Credit Report, Salman Haqqi, personal finance expert at money.co.uk explains how celebrity chefs are cooking up a storm outside of the kitchen.

“Celebrity and wealth used to be the exclusive domain of actors, singers, and sports stars, but in recent years there is plenty of cash in cooking and baking because of the increased appetite for food shows," she said.

“As the world’s culinary experts consolidate their TV appearances, recipe books and expand their brands on social media, it’s fair to say that the top cooks are feasting on the money they are making from their fame.

“Whether it’s their hypnotising cooking skills or their harsh but entertaining reviews, celebrity foodies are much more than just skilled in the kitchen."

The Celebrity Chef Credit Report reveals that the top 24 Bake Off contestants could earn an estimated £13.8k from sponsored posts on Instagram It found that Bake Off contestants have a two-year TV career on average, with winners John Whaite, Nadiya Hussain, and Candice Brown enjoying the longest broadcast careers.

The top 24 contestants star in a total of 458 TV episodes and see a combined 267,300 global searches per month The Great British Bake Off has unveiled the line-up for its Christmas and New Year's specials.

It was revealed by the programme via Twitter on Thursday which former bakers would be making their triumphant return for the festive one-off episodes.

Rosie Brandreth-Poynter, Ruby Bhogal, James Hillery, and Jamie Finn will make an appearance on the Channel 4 show's Christmas Eve episode.

Ms Bhogal was a finalist on the show's ninth season, while Mr Hillery and Ms Brandreth-Poynter took part in the tenth season, and Mr Finn appeared in season eight.

The New Year's Special will see former contestants Helena Garcia, Henry Bird, Nancy Birtwhistle and Rahul Mandal go up against each other.

Ms Birtwhistle won the show's fifth season and Mr Mandal also came top when he competed on the ninth season of the show, while Ms Garcia and Mr Bird both appeared in season ten.

The special will air on January 3, and sees Noel Fielding return to his spot as co-host the show alongside Matt Lucas.

See here for the full money.co.uk analysis.