Since her first appearance last year 79-year-old Mrs Parrish has become widely known as one of the country’s best home cooks.

She’s set to appear as a guest judge in an upcoming episode where contestants will pit their cooking skills against her in a bake-off.

Mrs Parrish baked four cakes yesterday - boiled fruit cake, madeira cake, lumberjack cake and lamingtons and today contestants will be challenged to create the same tasty treat.

“It’s exciting but I’m not nervous,” she said heading off to Sydney yesterday.

“The experience has been fantastic...I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d have an experience like that, the whole cast and crew are fabulous,” she said.

Life has changed for Mrs Parrish since the show. She’s even more famous since her book Merle’s Kitchen was published earlier this year.

Since then the book has sold 25,000 copies.

“It’s just a good simple cookbook,” Mrs Parrish said.

“The simplicity of it is most housewives have the ingredients in their cupboard and they don’t have to go down to the shops to buy anything.”

The episode will appear on channel 10’s MasterChef on August 19.