Their passion for food is infectious. “I just love to see people eat my food and enjoy it,” Daniela says. “Cooking relaxes me. I could do it at 12.30 at night. Any time...I just love it.”

Stefania adds: “We’re Italian! Of course, we love our food. I enjoy seeing people’s expressions when they taste the food I’ve made. It makes me happy.”

The women are so close they’re more like sisters. “We’re very alike,” Daniela, 43, says. “We like the same things. Stefania is fun to be with; everyone who meets her likes her.”

Stefania, 41, is equally as kind about her cousin adding, “Daniela’s a beautiful person inside and out.”

The Perth duo get along so well they’re worried it may pose a problem for them during the competition. “We muck around too much,” Daniela says. “We find it hard to be serious.”

But it doesn’t mean the pair aren’t prone to the odd argument in the kitchen. “She’s a little bossy and messy,” Stefania says.

Daniela meanwhile isn’t a fan of Stefania’s casual approach to following recipes. “She likes to add different ingredients to recipes. She thinks it makes it taste better. It drives me crazy.”

They’re most at home cooking Italian, the food they were brought up on. “Everyone loves my home-made gnocchi and osso bucco,” Daniela says. “And my children say I make the best pizza, risotto and chocolate pavlova.”

Stefania adds: “I’m known for my crème caramel and my chiffon sponge cake.”

In terms of cooking mentors, they’re big fans of Jamie Oliver and their own mothers.

“I used to cook all the time with my mum Maria,” Stefania says. “We’d always help her make pasta and cannelloni. She’s my inspiration.”

Similarly, Daniela learnt all she knows from her mother Rosa.

The girls often host barbecues for guests in excess of 40 people. Daniela, who runs her own hairdressing/nail salon, doesn’t have to go far to buy her meat. Her husband Federico is a butcher and together they have two children, Rosa, 22, and Giuliano, 19.

Stefania, a high school maths teacher at Kingsway Christian College, has three children with husband Joe : Alexia, 15, Claudia, 13 and Isabella, 11.

While the competition will take them away from their families, their brood will definitely not go hungry. They’ve both stocked their freezers full of fresh, home-made pasta.

If they win My Kitchen Rules, Daniela would love to fly to Tuscany and do a culinary course while Stefania is keen to open up her own patisserie. Daniela says, “But who knows? It’s a big adventure. Where it leads, who knows?”