Anneka Manning is an experienced author, food editor, cooking teacher, home economist, mother of two and the founder of BakeClub.
Her ultimate goal is to create a baking revolution, re-connecting home cooks with the magic of baking and, through this, engaging and nurturing the people they love.
In her 25 years as an author, food editor, consultant, teacher and publisher, Anneka Manning has worked for an impressive list of leading food publications including Australian Gourmet Traveller, Australian Good Taste, The Australian Women’s Weekly and The Sydney Morning Herald. She has also compiled, written and contributed to a number of successful, award-winning books, including good food and more good food (Text publishing), The Low GI Family Cookbook (Hachette) and Mastering the Art of Baking (Murdoch Books). Anneka’s latest book, BakeClass (Murdoch Books), will be published in early 2016.
Anneka writes regularly for a number of both print and online publications, as well as having a significant television and radio profile. Her columns include the monthly Bakeproof column for SBS Food, and Family Baking for GI News.
Through her writing, presenting and Sydney-based baking school, BakeClub, Anneka teaches home cooks to bake in practical and approachable, yet inspiring, ways. She hosts the unique, six-month Make Me a Baker program, the only cooking course of its kind currently available in Australia. During the in-depth classes, she teaches home cooks not only the ‘how’ but also the ‘why’ of baking, giving them the know-how and skill to bake with confidence and success, every time.
In this episode we talk about:
- The launching of Bake Club way back
- How does she balance and manage her career and family?
- Working out what are her priorities
- Loving what she do
- The importance of meditation
- The little things that make everyday Life run smoothly
- The importance of delivering values, useful and engaging content
- The success of Bake Club and how she made that happen?
- Her experienced working for a publishing book Industry back in 2012
- The struggling of publishing print Industry because of digital age during that time
- The knowledge of baking and cooking
- The baking club baking workshop class
- Anneka’s passion on Teaching
- The Private and Incorporate classes
- What’s her business model like?
- The strong point of Bake Club
- What they’ve proud of in Bake Club
- What’s their way or secret of teaching the baking process?
- Believing, pursuing and being passionate in what you love to do
- Creating and designing products that are suitable to people
- Finding else we can do which is applicable
- How she needs to market the classes which is very challenging
- What’s her biggest learning curve that she went through Life?
- The importance of being Jack of all Trade when you launch your business
- How does she plan her new workshop?
- The months of advance in planning her workshop class
- The importance of timelines in putting a cooking class
- Checking equipment suitable to classes
- Marketing and social media to promote the classes
- A matter of working out what the market is
- Their unique series of classes that really work in a very progressive way that can give every students a tangible skills
- The graduation afternoon Tea
- The importance of a lot of practice
- The challenges that actually made Anneka learned the most
- Taking yourself outside the comfort zone where the magic happens and discover what you are capable of
- How does she manage to keep in shape?
Anneka Manning’s fondest food memories
“I grew up on a shipping casual property down in Southern South wales. My mom bought that biscuits to make that lemon morning tea biscuits and she made this really delicious lemon slice made with sweet condensed milk. Every time she buys biscuits she actually makes something with it or cheesecake basil whatever. So we never ever had anything bought in the house as far as biscuits or cakes. You know mommy’s even made her own bread to a certain point. I remember actually getting the school pass and running down the hill and fresh bread are come out of the oven and slather on a butter. It was the best afternoon tea ever. “
“My mom I think was a really good cook. She actually preferred to spend the things that she really enjoys. So when I kind of started really enjoy being in the kitchen of about age 7 and 8. She was really happy for me to be in the kitchen and do whatever I like and to cook whatever I like as long as I cleaned up afterwards. So for a very young age, I was kind of the only person at primary school ordering cookbooks through the scholastic book club. And quite often, even I remember my aunt giving me one of the woman’s weekly cooking pass cookbooks for my 8th birthday. So for the very early age, I sort of started the cook books collection.”
“Mom made a really good sponge. That was kind of her go to recipes for birthdays I supposed. She used to do vanilla one with chocolate icing. So I supposed that is some sticks in my mind definitely. And we used to have it, my granny used to make the most delicious chocolate sauce. And so on really special occasion, we would have the vanilla sponge cake with the plain sponge cake with ice cream and hot chocolate. So that was pretty good.”
Exercise Routine
- Running a lot
- Walking
- During her workshop cooking class
Know more about Anneka Manning
Who would you love to have dinner with and where?
“It’s Nigel Slater. Nigel is a wonderful UK chef. I first discovered Nigel and his writing when he was writing for Marie Claire UK and I’ve been a fan of him ever since. He has written many many books and I have many of them. The most things that I love about Nigel’s recipes and words is that, He writes recipes so you can interpret them yourself but he gives you enough the information that, you know you can make it the way he has made it or he gives you lots of different options that you kind of adjusted. But the other thing that I like about Nigel’s cookbooks is that you can take them to be with you. They really food reading material and he has the most beautiful way of expressing things and evocative.”
“I don’t know if you have ever read his Movie biography called “Toast” but well worth read. It was such a beautiful story. It was very sad which not giving a way too much but there’s a beautiful moment in that, that took about marshmallows that his dad used to live beside his bed at night. I let you to read it but it was such a beautiful book. So well worth read.”
“The other one is Gabrielle Hamilton. She’s a New York chef. She has a little restaurant in New York called Prune. She wrote the most beautiful author biography called Blood, Bones and Butter. If you need a really great beautifully written book that’s really foodie, pick it up. I saw her at the crave food festival in Sydney, and she presented and she is just such a great presenter and then I was lucky enough to go to a dinner that she was co-hosting and she just such a great character and presenter. She writes a beautiful word and she has really interesting story to tell. So it’s well worth reading that one as well. She’s brilliant. You’ll love it.”
Last meal on the planet?
“I think for me, it’s about who you share with as much as what you’ve got in your plate too. So it’s like way you enjoy something a way you are experiencing the food. It’ a whole experience, it’s not just what’s on the plate. It’s kind of who you are sharing with, way you are, all of those sort of things. But probably would have been a good steak. I love a good steak. Something bake for dessert, and I think probably a beautiful lemon tart. “
“Before dessert, we’re going to have a gin and tonic but you have to have a splash of Sangiovese Verjuice preferably one of Maggie Beers. I would then have probably just a beautiful top quality prodjuice. I then would have a medium rear a beautiful ribeye, beautifully cooked. Some caramelized processed sprouts on the side. And what would I also have, probably it’s just some divine creamy mash on the side and then we would jump to dessert. A little bit of lemon tart or even just a perfect sponge cake. I’m a big fun of chocolate, I would go for a big rich divine flourless chocolate cake with beautiful fresh some are berries and some are coated cream.”
Resources
Where to find Anneka Manning
WEBSITE: http://www.annekamanning.com.au/
http://www.bakeclub.com.au/who-is-anneka-manning.aspx
Twitter: https://twitter.com/anneka_manning
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bakeclub_australia/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bake-Club/218456341624387?ref=hl
Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/anneka-manning-49a45426
Author: Ronsley Vaz
Ronsley is the founder & chief day dreamer at AMPLIFY. He is an author, speaker & serial entrepreneur.
He has a Masters’ degree in Software Engineering and an MBA in Psychology and Leadership. He is known as the creator of We Are Podcast – the first Podcasting Conference in the Southern Hemisphere, and the host of The Bond Appetit Podcast and Should I Start a Podcast. He has an audience of over 3 million in 133 countries.
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