Getting beaten by her best friend in a TV cooking show was all fun for former Whanganui woman Lou Tyson.

Brought up in Whanganui she's the big sister of Jessica Tyson, this year's Miss World New Zealand runner-up.

The two both left Whanganui to study at AUT in Auckland, and both do some television work.

Big sister Lou studied business. Her day job is in human resources and accounting but she's a TV presenter in her spare time, with programmes Play, The Adam and Eve Show and 2Kaha.

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Last weekend she interviewed sailors on board a navy ship and she talks to an up-and-coming British singer/songwriter next.

"It's very busy, but I love it."

She's not sure why she was chosen as a competitor for the first programme in the new Maori TV series Whanau Bake Off.

The contestants are supposed to be celebrities and she isn't sure she is one - her partner, top Kiwi singer and X Factor judge Stan Walker, is though.

Anyway, she pitted her baking skills against her best friend, Jethro Gardiner, in the Maori TV show that started on Thursday night.

It was her friend who chose key lime pie as the food they both had to cook.

They found a recipe on the internet, and stayed up late to practise making it the night before filming was done.

"The call time was 7am and we were up until 3am. We made about three pies that night, trying it different ways."

During filming Miss Tyson made the mistake of copying her friend by adding extra cream cheese - but she forgot to stir it properly. It came out in a lump in the finished pie.

Judge Allyson Gofton said Mr Gardiner's pie was better - but not by much.

Miss Tyson's parents, mum Margaret and dad Raymond love seeing her on television.

"Whenever I'm on, they're my biggest fans. They thought the show was very entertaining, with plenty of laughs."

She recommends the pie, too, as being delicious and easy to make.