But the arrival of this crucial missing ingredient from his life would ultimately leave him with thousands of pounds of debt and a nasty taste in his mouth.
The 90-minute programme, available to stream from Tuesday 25 March, was directed by BAFTA-nominated Nick Green and made by UK independent production company Forest.
“The formidable original journalism will have viewers on the very edge of their seat.”
Graham Hornigold is one of the UK’s top pastry chefs (Photo: Netflix)Born on a British Army base in Germany in 1974, Hornigold was fostered from the age of two for a couple of years.
His upbringing, with a father who drank and had violent tendencies, was challenging. He described him in an interview with The Guardian as “ex-army, classic 1970s.”
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A Saturday job at Ushers Bakery in St Albans eventually led to him pursuing a career in catering.
Later, he took courses at Thames Valley University in Slough before starting work under the tutelage of Lisa Crowe at The Lygon Arms in Broadway, Worcestershire and then working at The Park Lane Hotel and Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park, London.
Under his guidance, The Lanesborough’s afternoon tea won the Tea Guild’s Award of Excellence two years running and Graham was named UK Pastry Chef of the Year in 2007.
His success in the industry saw him invited to be a judge on Junior Bake Off and appear on Masterchef: The Professionals.
It is a small-batch bakery specialising in finger doughnuts, using a brioche base with fillings such as raspberry rose lychee and salted caramel pretzel.
Hornigold received an email in July 2020 from a woman claiming to be his mother (Photo: Netflix)How was Graham Hornigold scammed?
It read: “Hi Graham, I’m not sure if this is going to reach you as I’ve been searching for a way to contact you and found this email.”
There the Asian woman in her 80s revealed she was a wealthy business owner who lived in Singapore and ran fruit farms and palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia. She also said she was the illegitimate child of the former sultan of Brunei.
The chef said “it was a bit bittersweet”, after returning to his life “now she was being taken away again”.
Dionne lived a lavish lifestyle and showered the couple with expensive gifts.
His arrival coincided with an apparent downturn in Dionne’s health, she said she had started passing blood.
But everything appeared to be held up by Covid and nothing was settled.
Heather Kaniuk was Graham Hornigold’s former partner (Photo: Netflix)He was using of savings and credit cards to pay for his mother, on the understanding she would pay him back. The debts had run into hundreds of thousands.
Then when the chef found red food dye in her hotel suite, he suspected she was using it to convince him of her terminal condition.
Where is Graham Hornigold now?
Attempts to involve the police in the financial matters were unsuccessful, Hornigold said: “Essentially they call it a bad business decision, because you know where the money is going and who to.”
Hornigold said he chose to do the documentary to raise awareness about mental health (Photo: Netflix)
Ms Kaniuk described Dionne’s behaviour as going “against everything you think a mother should do – loving and protecting a child”.
“With no remorse.”
Hornigold is in London and aside from Longboys, he runs a patisserie wholesale business and a consultancy firm called Smart Patisserie.
He has also revealed he had therapy to recover mentally from the trauma of the event and its consequences and his past.
But he said he hoped the documentary would raise awareness about the importance of mental health.
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