Salt Rock baker Amanda Jane de Lange has artistic flair

Salt Rock’s Amanda Jane de Lange is a creative powerhouse whose design and baking talents have drawn a wide audience.

She is not only the mind behind Amanda Jane Designs, which shows off her skill with pen on paper, but also the newly opened Sweet Ginger bakery at the Sage Centre.

Her creative output has been years in the making, ever since she found herself doodling at school in Scottburgh while struggling with dyslexia.

“I battled a bit at school, so really focused on drawing and home economics, which has proved to be what I still love to this day,” she said.

After starting a family – she has four children aged 12 to 25 – De Lange put her efforts into becoming a homemaker, but slowly dipped her toe into expressing her artistic side as her children got older.

“We have been very lucky to travel a lot and I was always inspired by the streetwear on show when walking through Europe. I loved looking at the fashion and just decided to see if I could recreate it,” she said.

De Lange’s signature style is black and white drawings of incredibly chic people, mostly women, who are going about their day – generally with a cup of coffee or glass of wine in hand, of course.

Like something out of a fashion designer’s sketchbook, her drawings perfectly capture an aesthetic typically seen on the streets of Paris or Milan.

All of the designs are hand drawn with marker pens, before being scanned onto her computer.

Many of the drawings also have a tagline to match, like “we are not shopaholics, we are supporting the economy” which is printed on one of her shopping bags.

The illustrations can be found printed on a number of different products such as coffee cups, T-shirts and tags, all of which can be found at the bakery or on her @amandajane_designs Instagram page.

Sweet Ginger opened earlier this month and represents the other side of De Lange’s creative passions.

“My daughter would have cake sales in our estate and I got good feedback, so decided to go for it full time. We’re so used to defrosted, pre-frozen desserts and I wanted to bring back freshly baked, tasty options.”

Her menu changes every week and includes options from muffins to macarons and the fan-favourite ice cream cookie sandwich using fresh chocolate chip cookies.

Sweet Ginger is open Monday-Sunday from 9am-4pm.

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