Internationally acclaimed pastry and dessert chef Christy Tania suffered an identity crisis on the set of Dessert Masters after a year away from her craft.
“All I had made for over a year was baby food,” Christy, 32, tells TV WEEK. “I had the most vulnerable moments of thinking I was not good enough [for the competition] and had the biggest internal bashing and identity crisis.”
The new mother had taken more than a year away from the hospitality industry and her cake business, Glacé Dessert Artisanal, that she owns with her husband and fellow chef, Luke Johnson, to raise her one-year-old son, Ben.
It was very strange for the workaholic who never knew how to slow down.
“There’s nothing that would keep me away from working,” Christy revealed. “Not even our wedding or honeymoon stopped me. But motherhood is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ve opened my own business and moved country four times.”
Being a part of the series was a rude shock for the Chef’s Hat award winner, who is used to being on the other side of the kitchen bench and setting pressure test challenges as a guest judge on MasterChef Australia.
“I felt bad for all the contestants I made go through the same thing I had to,” she says with a laugh. “When I first walked into the kitchen I was petrified. I did a baptism by fire by throwing myself in competition with some of Australia’s best pastry chefs.”
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