I always went for the ‘red flag’ boys, until I met my husband

Rachel Khoo’s father gave her a good grounding in science, but food was always her passion, says the cookbook author and judge on The Great Australian Bake Off. Here, the 44-year-old discusses the influential men in her life, her “crush” on cookbook author Donna Hay, and why her views on marriage changed when she met her now husband.

Rachel Khoo says she used to date “bad boys”, much to her mother’s dismay.

My dad, Kheng, was born in Malaysia and got a scholarship to study at the University of Bath in the UK when he was 18. He comes from a big family and his eldest brother had to support him while studying abroad. My grandad wasn’t alive, so my uncle was the next in line to help the family financially. It was also expensive to fly home in those days, so he spent his holidays with a school friend’s family.

Dad comes from a hard-working immigrant family and taught me that nothing comes from nothing. He worked in IT. He’s retired now and loves to play chess. As kids, my brother Michael and I would go to chess club. It wasn’t really my thing, and I’d sneak off to the tuckshop to buy sweets, but Dad made sure Michael and I knew a lot about science, from black-hole theories to Stephen Hawking.

My parents met in a pub in London after my Austrian mum came to the UK aged 19 to work as an au pair. Dad is 10 years older than her, and he is traditional, but at the same time he never said you can’t do this because you’re a woman. He taught us to study hard and to work hard.

I remember our first family trip to Malaysia when I was eight. It was a big culture shock for me – Dad’s family ate an entire roast suckling pig. Coming from suburban London, it was very different.

My brother Michael is three years younger than me. He lives in Vienna and is way more laid-back than I am – I was the bossy older sister. We played a lot as kids, but we’d fight over the TV remote control. Michael works with Bitcoin now and has a knack of connecting people. I am more the introvert and he is the extrovert in the family.

I went to a convent school in Germany from the age of 12 to 17 because my dad got work there. The only male teacher I had was a priest. I had a disagreement with him in front of the class about how he pronounced my name. Let’s say we didn’t see eye to eye.

My celebrity crushes as a teen were bands like Take That and East 17 – I switched between liking Robbie Williams and Mark Owen, depending on my mood. I also had a crush on Australian cookbook author Donna Hay – I couldn’t afford her books but always admired her styling and recipes. I built up the courage to approach her in Dubai some years back. I was so nervous.

I worked in PR for British shirtmaker Thomas Pink for three years after finishing my university degree. My manager, Rob, was very encouraging in helping me figure out what I wanted to do and always very supportive.

I moved to Paris in 2006 to study at Le Cordon Bleu. My parents were shocked and apprehensive at first. Dad did say, “You’ve got a well-paid job in London. Why would you want to change?” I get it now that I’m a parent. It came from a place of love – he wanted me to be secure and able to pay my bills.

Paris is where my big career break happened. I wrote two cookbooks in French and got a UK book deal, which led to TV work. I was a disaster when it came to dating, though. I was always attracted to the bad boys – total red flags, the ones who wouldn’t introduce you to their mum and never liked commitment.

I met my husband, [chef] Robert Wiktorin, in 2011 through mutual friend Thomasine Barnekow, a Swedish glove designer who makes pieces for Beyoncé, when she invited me to a party at her parents’ farm in Sweden. We married in 2015 and have three children – two sons, aged eight and six, and a daughter, aged two.

Robert is better at chilling out than me. I am always trying to learn to go with the flow. He has been very supportive of my career, too, and helping with the kids. I knew I wanted to have kids, but didn’t really think about getting married until I fell in love with Robert.

The Great Australian Bake Off streams on Binge.

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