Emelia Jackson is a contestant of MasterChef Australia Season 6, the winner of Season 12, & the Runner-Up of Dessert Masters Australia Season 2. She is placed 3rd on Season 6.
Biography[]
Retrieved from 10play.com.au
Season 6[]
This competitive, confident Marketing Coordinator from Templestowe, Victoria, is ready to win.
Her close-knit family includes mum Nada, a semi-retired school teacher, and dad Paul. Along with brothers Dave, 31, Nick, 28, Paul runs the family business, Peter Jackson menswear. Sister Steph, 26, is an obstetrics doctor. Emelia was also especially close to her Macedonian baba (grandma), Fani, who sadly passed away in 2012.
Emelia – aka the Dessert Queen, famed for her panna cottas – was encouraged in the kitchen from an early age. She remembers watching and learning from both her mum and baba. She would also get her hands dirty to help, kneading doughs and baking treats.
It was at 14 that Emelia was suddenly confronted with what would become a defining chapter in her life.
Running for a tram in Melbourne’s CBD, a car struck Emelia, leaving her with a broken femur, pelvis and shattered kneecap. It forced Emelia to miss a year of school, at a crucial point of her adolescence. She endured hospital stays, many surgeries and, for a time, was confined to a wheelchair.
Countless years of rehabilitation followed. Intense physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and chiropractic treatments nursed her back to full health.
Emelia also credits the multitude of cooking shows she watched during this time as important to her recovery - and important to her future.
Emelia had her heart set on a cooking apprenticeship after high school. But out of respect for her parents’ wishes, she completed a four-year Bachelor of Psychology and Management/Marketing.
Travelling in 2013 around Europe and the US for six months also helped Emelia focus on her future path.
As her friends soaked up shopping and beaches, Emelia concentrated on markets, menus, produce and cafés.
It is Emelia’s dream to open a café called Jackson & Friends, with a menu based on family and friends’ favourite dishes. It wouldn't be a surprise to see an online dessert buffet and catering business bearing her name. It’s in her five-year plan.
Describing herself as crafty and capable, Emelia sees MasterChef Australia as her chance to refine and extend her natural skills.[1]
Season 12[]
Sweet Queen Emelia Jackson is back to take glory in the MasterChef kitchen, six years after falling just shy of the ultimate prize. Eliminated on a whipped chocolate ganache, the former marketing co-ordinator from Melbourne’s east left the show with a newfound booming confidence, going on to open her own cake business. She now spends her days preparing decadent bespoke wedding, engagement, birthday, and event cakes.[2]
Dessert Masters Season 2[]
Putting herself in the running for the Dessert Masters title marks the third time Emelia Jackson has competed in the kitchen, but this time it is with a singular sweet focus.
After placing third in her first MasterChef Australia outing in 2014 (season 6), Emelia made baking her day job, launching a cake business designing celebration and wedding cakes and running classes and workshops to share her knowledge.
Returning older and wiser to MasterChef Australia: Back To Win in 2020 (season 12), she claimed victory over a star-studded field of favourites and won more fans for her quick wit and dry sense of humour, in addition to her incredible skills.
Now on Dessert Masters, Emelia has set her sights on another big win, but this time she will need to defeat the crème de la crème of her pastry peers to claim a second crown.
Shaped by her close-knit family, Emelia grew up learning in the kitchen from her mother and her beloved late Macedonian baba. Cooking now comes full circle for Emelia as she creates new traditions with her own two young children, whom she has welcomed in recent years with fiancé Craig. Taking after their mum, both Emelia’s daughter Addie and son Mac love getting involved in the kitchen.
Despite being in such a busy season of her home life, Emelia has not taken a moment’s rest professionally. She is an accomplished author, with her first cookbook, First, Cream The Butter And Sugar: The Essential Baking Companion published in 2022, and her second cookbook, Some Of My Best Friends Are Cookies having just launched. Emelia also holds the post of Good Food’s regular Better Baking columnist.
Heralded as the undisputed queen of choux pastry, memories of Emelia’s Paris-Brest and éclairs live rent-free in the minds of MasterChef fans, who no doubt hope that she brings out the big guns once again as she chases another win during Dessert Masters.
Determined and focused as ever, Emelia is relishing the opportunity to take on a challenge that while solely for her, also stands to show her children the value of hard work and being driven by your passions in life.[3]
Post MasterChef[]
- She returned to Season 13 as a special guest and revealing that she is pregnant.[4]
- She welcomes her first daughter Addie on June 4, 2021.[5]
Trivia[]
- She is the first returning contestant to win MasterChef Australia.
- The first 2 times she is in the Final 3, she is with Laura.
References[]
- ↑ https://10play.com.au/masterchef/participants/season-6/emelia-jackson/pa190618rbiul
- ↑ https://10play.com.au/masterchef/participants/season-12/emelia-jackson/pa200218pvboq
- ↑ https://10play.com.au/dessert-masters/participants/season-2/emelia-jackson/pa241008yjkcn
- ↑ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9494987/Reigning-MasterChef-queen-Emilia-Jackson-announces-shes-pregnant-cooking-competition.html
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/CQFs2e7FnG4/
External links[]
Emelia Jackson on Instagram