Rebecca (29) is a Sunday Times Bestselling author and expert family recipe developer. Her mission is simple but far from easy – to provide parents with ‘one meal fits all’ recipes so mealtimes are a far cry away from the stresses and pains they usually involve.
Her debut book ‘What Mummy Makes: Cook Just Once for You and Your Baby’ (£14.99) includes over 130 fresh and nutritious options for parents to choose from, suitable for diners aged 6-months and beyond. The One-Pan Lemon Salmon with Courgette and Potato Wedges is a hero example of the inventive, yet simple recipes Rebecca provides – and is one of the reasons why the book won the top spot on the Sunday Times Bestseller list.
Her recently published ‘What Mummy Makes: Family Meal Planner’ (£9.99) offers a further 28 recipes, alongside helping parents to shop, organise and create home-cooked meals. Parents throughout the country have praised the usability and applicability of Rebecca’s recipes to their own lives, spurring her passion, to make family life easier, even further.
Based in Cumbria with Hungarian heritage, Rebecca is a creative entrepreneur who has managed to accumulate a 440k strong following on Instagram in just two years.
Tell us a bit about yourself, background and your current role
I gave birth three years ago which consequently led to me leaving my job as I wasn’t able to return part-time. Once I started to wean my daughter onto solid food, I found my passion for family cooking which led to the start of my social media account. Through this, I documented my journey and the recipes I invented along the way.
Two years later and I now have two cookbooks; What Mummy Makes: Cook just once for you and your baby, and the What Mummy Makes: Family Meal Planner. Both of these focus on cooking just one meal for the whole family, and in particular food which can be enjoyed by any ages – whether they’re 99-year-olds or a 6-month-old baby. Cooking just once to feed the whole family and eating together not only saves time, stress and money but it helps our little ones to learn the physicality of eating and it is proven to reduce fussiness in the long term.
I publish recipes on my social media accounts (Instagram and Facebook) and there’s a new website launching soon which is really exciting!
Did you ever sit down and plan your career?
18 months ago, I did my first ever five year plan! Prior to this, I had aspirations and dreams of where my careers could go, but in a completely different industry. When I started What Mummy Makes, it felt right, the milestones felt achievable, and I started to become confident that this venture would be my future.
Have you faced any challenges along the way?
Back in 2018, I really wanted to write a cookbook – my audience kept asking me for one, but I had always perceived it as an unattainable dream (even though I’d been obsessed with cookbooks since being a teenager!). The more it was requested, the harder I tried to make it happen, although being a complete novice in the industry I didn’t know the process.
It took me a long time, coupled with a lot of rejection emails from editors to realise I needed a good literary agent by my side. I signed with Darryl at Artellus who believed in What Mummy Makes, shared the same ideas about to where it could lead, and the rest is history! We signed with Stephanie Milner at DK and published two cookbooks in a year.
I’m really pleased I didn’t give up and kept pushing myself to find a way into the industry.
What has been your biggest achievement to date?
Oh, the day my editor rang to tell me my book was a Sunday Times Number 1 Bestseller, I felt so proud. I often don’t give myself credit where its due, but this is something I’m working on!
What one thing do you believe has been a major factor in you achieving success?
Pledging to myself to always offer extra value to my audience. The more you give, the more you’ll receive!
How do you feel about mentoring? Have you mentored anyone or are you someone’s mentee?
I mentored someone when I was in university, and also had a mentor during the early stages of What Mummy Makes. I think it’s a fantastic way to analyse and filter what is truly important to your business. Explaining your plans to an impartial person massively helped me to understand the right path to take. In fact, I’m looking for a mentor right now!
If you could change one thing to accelerate the pace of change for Gender Equality, what would it be?
Ensure the laws help protect women to keep their financial independence once becoming a mother. This would give them the space to advance in their chosen careers, reducing both the time and sacrifices women make when becoming a mother.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self what would it be?
Trust the process, keep working hard, and try to avoid self-doubt.
What is your next challenge and what are you hoping to achieve in the future?
There are lots of exciting things in the pipeline, some in the near future will be announced very soon! But long term, my goal is to help parents feed their family stress and worry free.
I’m keen to launch products to help make this happen soon, watch this space…
