MAGGIE'S SECRETS - Burnt pastry, great expectations and joy

She’s the most recognisable face in Australian cooking, beloved by millions and famous for introducing the world to the wonders of verjuice. But when the cameras are off, who is the real Maggie Beer?

- TIFFANY DUNK

As Maggie Beer potters around her kitchen in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, there are often a thousand and one things jostling for her attention. She’s constantly on the go, with a busy family life, TV cooking shows, videos to film for the Maggie Beer Foundation – which aims to improve food experiences for those in aged care – Maggie Beer’s Farmshop and more. So it’s lucky, she laughs, that she enjoys her baked goods on the verge of incineration.

“My main baking disaster is that I get distracted and burn things,” Australia’s favourite cook tells The Weekly. “I use the word ‘burn-ish’ because I like pastries and bread really taken to a past-golden stage. So my family are very funny. They always say that I made up that word to disguise burning everything because I forgot about it.”

With a career in food that has spanned more than four decades, Maggie has always relied on instinct over vigilant recipe-following to fuel her cooking adventures. Mistakes, she says, both in the kitchen and in life, have taught her how to fix them. And an eagerness to learn continues to offer horizons she never knew existed. Her passion for making food fun, easy and effortless is ongoing, as is her determination to leave the world a better place than she found it.

As she returns to judge her fifth season – and the sixth overall – of The Great Australian Bake Off, we sit down with Maggie to find out what makes her tick … and what really ticks her off.