Hayley J. Egan
LOVE, LAUGH AND BAKE WITH SILVIA COLLOCA
Photo Rob Palmer
As I write this, the smell of raspberry swirl cake is wafting through the room, filling the house with a scent that is sweet, fruity, vanilla, and just plain heavenly. It’s everything you want to smell
It’s fitting then that the book be such a deeply genuine family experience, featuring photographs of Silvia herself in her own kitchen, her husband (Richard Roxburgh of ABC’s Rake), and their baby Luna. All are shown sampling treats fresh from the oven. Real rep-
coming from your oven, and the anticipation is
resentations of a real family eating real, home-cooked
building.
food. Silvia Colloca is known in Australia mostly for her television presence. ‘Made in Italy with Silvia Colloca’
You see, yesterday I received a copy of Love,
was a 10-part TV series premiering on SBS in 2014. It
Laugh, Bake by Silvia Colloca, and today, a lazy Sat-
was filmed in Italy, and featured her family and her
urday morning, is the day I finally get to turn on the
mother’s kitchen in Abruzzo.
oven and try out my first recipe.
It wasn’t easy to choose. Love Laugh Bake is one of the densest cookbooks I’ve ever come across. The theme is baking, and the book is filled with recipes and information on bread (rye, sourdough, no-knead, flat breads and gluten-free), as well as cookies, pies, pastry, cakes, tarts and more. There are over 120 dough-based recipes in the book, which Silvia says
‘(My family were) so proud and so happy that I managed to create that show’, Silvia says. ‘It’s so hard. What goes into producing a show like that, is a monumental effort and a lot of money. We managed to create that one show with 10 episodes, and that is what I’m most proud of.’
she had a lot of fun putting together.
Two years later, the ABC brought us ‘Silvia’s Italian
‘I was pregnant when I wrote it, and all I wanted to do was cook and eat cake,’ she laughs.
Table.’ In this 8-part series, Silvia plays host to notable Australian personalities, creating a hybrid of the reality show and the cooking show formulae. It gave Silvia the opportunity to dine with Australian celebrities.
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Photo Rob Palmer
‘Some of them I had met, some I met on the day. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet these people.’
