Baking pans and broomsticks…Bake Off star on preventing stereotypes of witches
Helena Garcia goals to vary witches stereotype (Image: )
Appearing on The Great British Bake Off in 2019, Helena Garcia’s gothic-looking muffins had been memorably described by choose Prue Leith as “sinister but very pretty”. If it sounds barely eccentric, it’s a praise she brandishes with pleasure, having been embraced by the general public regardless of being voted off the present in spherical 5.
“Before Bake Off, I was terrified about people’s reactions to me on TV,” says the 45-year-old in her lilting Spanish accent. “I thought they might think I was insane.”
With her quirky character, gothic outfits and curiosity in witches, she may need disappeared with out hint, as is the standard destiny of contestants who exit early.
But not a little bit of it. In reality she’s loved a burgeoning profession as a ‘white witch’, launching her personal way of life model of Halloween-themed garments and equipment – providing “classic taste with a witchy twist” – and has written a number of gothic-inspired cookery and crafting books.
She has even appeared within the cult American TV comedy-horror present What We Do In The Shadows.
Helena Garcia appeared on the Great British Bake Off (Image: Supplied by WENN)
Now her first kids’s e book – a touching story a couple of mom and her little witchling – has simply been printed, with lush illustrations by rising star illustrator, Jess Rose. Told in witty rhyming couplets, it was impressed not solely by Helena’s relationship along with her personal five-year-old daughter, Flora, however by her respect for white witchcraft.
Rather than dabbling at nighttime arts, she is a foraging herbalist drawn to pure treatments and therapeutic. Her new e book, My Mummy Is A Witch, is an try to redress the detrimental imagery that persists about witches in a lot of youngsters’s literature.
“The witch is the most unfairly-treated character in the history of humankind,” she explains. “These were women who were solitary, yet found themselves accused simply for being ‘different’. Some performed abortions to save other women; most knew herbs; all were wise. Or they were just very pretty, and their neighbours were jealous.
“In every society, a woman who was intelligent, and who could read and write, was a threat to patriarchal society.”
Such stereotypes persist in modern-day society. Helena says she despairs of the pejorative messaging her younger daughter is bombarded with. “It’s a constant battle!” she insists. “There are so many influences at school, and in wider society, telling her witches are evil.
“When you have small children, you end up with a million story books. They always refer to the ‘big bad wolf’, while the witch is always the villain.”
Helena and her daughter collectively (Image: )
Helena needs to present her daughter an alternate tackle witchery.
“So, I re-educate her: I tell her that witches make botanical potions that can make you better. And I explain that wolves never attack humans, they are too shy.”
All of which explains why, in her new story, the witch and the wolf are goodies, not baddies.
“I want to celebrate the more classical sense of what a witch is – a strong woman who knows her way around some of nature’s most mystical and medicinally-pungent natural ingredients,” she says.
“At the end of the day, we’re independent women who have knowledge, and who forage. I love to forage, I’m in tune with nature. I want to show children that we can be fun, loving and wise, and enjoy everyday special moments with our families.”
Born in Ceuta, a Spanish metropolis on the tip of North Africa, and raised in Lanzarote within the Canary Islands, Helena later spent a yr in highschool in Las Vegas. It was right here that her curiosity in white witchcraft initially woke up.
“At the age of 16, I got to experience Halloween – on steroids,” she says. “It had a massive impact on me.”
But it wasn’t the gaudiness that drew her in; it was discovering the traditional historical past and traditions behind the spooky autumn competition. She realized that Halloween has its roots in European Celtic people customs and beliefs.
Helena’s maternal household hails from Galicia, in northwest Spain, a area colonised by Celts centuries in the past. It’s a connection that has made her even keener to analyze the traditions of witchcraft. She believes all of the Celtic areas of Europe, together with the British Isles, ought to begin reclaiming Halloween from the Americans.
“Halloween in the Celtic new year is the moment when the light half of the year gives way to the dark half,” she explains. “The Celts believed that, on October 31, the veil between the living and dead was lifted, and you needed to disguise yourself to stay safe.”
She factors out the way it was the Irish immigrants to North America who exported Halloween traditions resembling hollowing out turnips and giving them ugly faces. On the opposite facet of the Atlantic, pumpkins proved to be in ample provide, and distinctly simpler to carve.
Nowadays Helena lives in a village close to Leeds the place, she says, the cloudy Yorkshire skies swimsuit her temperament.
She first moved to the UK whereas finding out for her diploma in psychology. “I hate the sun,” she declares. “Every other Spaniard can’t bear how grey it is in Britain, but I love it. I’m from the Canary Islands but I much prefer the seasons and the English countryside.”
In time, Helena started to use her witchy, gothic aesthetic to all the pieces she wore; to the interiors of her residence; and, ultimately, to the ornament of her spooky muffins.
Helena has curiosity in historic historical past and traditions (Image: )
It additionally explains why she leapt on the likelihood to take over the lease on a lovely Victorian apothecary in Leeds, having realised she needed to do one thing artistic along with her life. The store had mahogany fittings and Helena performed classic music to finish the backdrop, in opposition to which she offered her numerous potions, lotions and way of life equipment.
Nowadays she sells her merchandise by way of her web site, with each merchandise manufactured to her unique designs. There are all kinds of gothic gadgets, from spiderweb cushions and umbrellas marked with constellations to coffin-shaped picnic baskets, cauldron espresso mugs, even a wild witch seaside hat.
Recent designs embrace metallic silver spiderweb footwear and a quilted bum bag, additionally within the form of a coffin. Apparently the Americans can’t get sufficient of these things.
“When you have a niche audience, it is so much easier to market to them. Big companies have copied some of my designs, but I want to keep it small-scale. My ideal is slow fashion – the opposite of lots of clothing getting destroyed if it doesn’t sell, which would be horrendous.”
Her residence, an outdated manor home she shares with husband Will, is equally inspirational, with designs that draw freely and colourfully on her passions.
“Will is a stereotypically Northern man,” she says. “He is not like me at all. While he’s introverted, I’m a social beast. He works in sports media and is a total geek.”
My Mummy Is A Witch e book by Helena Garcia (Image: Helena Garcia)
While Helena usually sports activities a gothic look, Will prefers normal denims and checked shirts and definitely seems like a dream husband. “He lets me do whatever I want to the house,” she smiles. “I made the kitchen look like a witches’ apothecary.” Naturally, in a single nook there’s a cauldron.”
Helena’s likelihood to compete on Bake Off took place after she entered a charity baking competitors in a division retailer close to her former store. “Everyone said I should enter Bake Off,” she remembers. “The application process was so long, as 20,000 people applied, and there were so many stages I had to go through.”
By this time she was pregnant with Flora. “When I appeared on the show, Flora was 11 months old and I was still breast-feeding her.” Although the producers had been very supportive, Helena admits it was “hell on Earth”.
“I was hiding under the counter, pumping milk, while making a show-stopping cake,” she remembers. “Sometimes I was running to the main house to chuck away the expressed milk. I didn’t want to stop breast-feeding just because I was on TV. I hadn’t thought it through.”
In the tip, although, it was all price it. What with the gross sales of Halloween-themed clothes and accessories, and all of the books, this white witch is increase fairly an empire of goth.
- My Mummy Is A Witch by Helena Garcia (Owlet Press, £12.99) out now. Visit expressbookshop.com or name Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on orders over £25