Baked with Love / Annabel Coulter, a year on from her Kiwi Bake Off success
A year on from Annabel Coulter’s remarkable achievement of taking out The Great Kiwi Bake Off title, it’s clear the feat was no flash in the pan. Humble and charming, it was merely the catalyst for Annabel to commit fully to her passion for baking.
Ethereal, slight and beaming her infectious smile, Annabel Coulter seems too young to be a celebrity cook, much less a reality television star. However, at just 18 years old, the Timaru teen was catapulted into baking fame when she became the youngest contestant ever to win The Great
Kiwi Bake Off, not just victorious in the 2018 New Zealand competition, but also becoming the youngest to take the crown in the British-born franchise’s history.
Annabel’s appreciation for baking began as a three-yearold when her beloved gran took her under her wing and started teaching her to cook. The family laughs that they used to prep quietly to keep their little pre-schooler from ‘helping’ in the kitchen – an exercise that any parent knows is outwardly cute, but testing in patience and time. However, Annabel says ‘Gran was happy to help’ and the two of them would spend hours baking together, trawling through a dog-eared, handwritten recipe book belonging to Annabel’s grandmother and now a treasured keepsake that she still refers to on a regular basis.
When Annabel’s grandmother passed away eight years ago, the loss was hard for the young girl to accept and she didn’t bake for a year. ‘We were really, really close,’ she smiles,
‘but I’m glad I could keep going, although I think she’d laugh at all the fancy stuff I do now.’ In fact, Gran’s eyebrows may well be raised by the technical precision her granddaughter applies to her cooking these days, and it’s Annabel who fondly laughs at Gran’s recipe book of quantities and ingredients but no methods. ‘Mix until looks right’ is a common directive.
A former student of Craighead Diocesan School, Annabel studied ‘arty subjects’ and credits French and Art as instrumental in her passion for French patisserie and fine motor art skills. However, while she loved school, Annabel says she loved baking even more and former teachers may be surprised to learn she was equally adept at Economics. At just 15 years old, Annabel started her own baking business after discovering she could bake commercially from home. Costs were calculated, profit margins factored, a word-ofmouth marketing campaign was effective, and entrepreneurial Annabel was suddenly in the business of selling cakes and catering morning teas.
It must have been a frenetic lifestyle for Annabel. Not only was she still at school and running a successful business, but she was also a ballet dancer. Then, at just 16 years old, adversity struck. Thirteen years of ballet came to an abrupt halt when she succumbed to a stress injury. Philosophical about the impact of the injury, Annabel explains it’s one that affects the hips of ballet dancers and ‘it is only just good now’. Heavily medicated, Annabel spent much of her Year 12 school year sitting in a drugged haze. ‘I couldn’t go to school. I sat for months,’ she says. However, the lure of the kitchen was strong and in time Annabel was able to sit on a stool and bake. ‘Baking is what got me back,’ she says.
Fast-forward to 2018 and Annabel had completed Year 13 at school. Taking a gap year from study, she was watching television with her parents when a story was aired on Seven Sharp calling for applicants for the reality cooking show,
The Great Kiwi Bake Off. Annabel says she ‘didn’t consider the reality TV, just the competition’ and submitted a video recording and a portfolio of her baking. Within a day, she’d heard back from TVNZ. There were questionnaires to complete, Skype interviews with Warner Bros. producers, testing with a psychologist and finally, in mid-June, the call to say she was in.
At just 15 years old, Annabel started her own baking business after discovering she could bake commercially from home.
After a mere two weeks of preparation when Annabel practised, perfected and submitted 21 recipes, she was in Auckland and filming had begun. An intense fortnight later the show had wrapped up and the contestants were sworn to secrecy. Four thousand applicants had been whittled down to 12 competitors and Annabel had emerged as the winner. ‘It was crazy,’ she laughs. ‘We did the whole thing in two weeks working 14-hour days.’ Not surprisingly, the contestants became firm friends in a unique and highly pressurised environment, the farewells genuinely hard as people dropped off on a daily basis.
Reflecting on the show, there were several highlights for Annabel, winning the title being an obvious one. There were also points for achieving Star Baker, confidence gained throughout the show and a special cook when she was able to bake a pavlova using her grandmother’s recipe. However, the high of winning had to be stifled for five months before the final was televised and Annabel’s secret success finally became public news. Plans to hold a small gathering at home to watch the final snowballed and in the end over 200 people gathered at the Gleniti Baptist Church to watch it on the big screen. ‘I was sick of keeping it secret,’ laughs Annabel. ‘I was so happy it was out and able to celebrate. Everyone roared, there were hugs and my phone went crazy.’
While winning The Great Kiwi Bake Off was a remarkable feat, her success as an amateur baker is proving to be just the beginning of Annabel’s professional journey, and these days she is based in Wellington where she is studying Patisserie at the illustrious Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand, an offshoot of the culinary network of schools considered to be the largest in the world and the guardian of French cuisine. Lectured by French Michelin star chefs, Annabel says the course is challenging but she loves it, thriving on the privilege of being ‘trained by such amazingly experienced chefs’. Having wanted to attend Le Cordon Bleu since she was just 11 years old, it’s a dream come true for Annabel. ‘I love it up there. I especially love the school; I could live there!’ Instead, she has to settle for daily three-hour lectures followed by practical sessions where she is expected to perfect and refine the skills she has been taught and practise new techniques. With a love for travel and different cultures, she’s excited and hopeful of a three-month international internship at the conclusion of her study.
Incredibly sweet, humble, kind and friendly with a strong love for her family, food and church, it’s also clear Annabel has a steely resolve and it seems certain this young foodie will achieve her career goals – experience in fine dining being one of them, a dessert bar the other. It seems appropriate. After all, who else chooses ‘dessert first and then my main to make sure I’m not too full’?!
Four thousand applicants had been whittled down to 12 competitors and Annabel had emerged as the winner.