Taste testing Australia's best pies, breads, and pastries

Australian Community Media

Bakery Association of Australia judges marked gourmet pies and pastries across 18 different categories and crowned Australia's best bakeries at the event in Melbourne on June 18, 2024.

Transcript

00:00I'm here at the Moonee Valley Racecourse in Melbourne where the Bakers Association of

00:05Australia trade show is being held today and over the next two days judges are going to

00:10decide who the best baker is in Australia by tasting through hundreds of pies, donuts

00:16and bread rolls.

00:17So let's go and try what the Australian bakers have to offer.

00:20Well I'm a bit of a sucker for seafood so there's usually some beautiful scallop pies

00:25come out of Tassie but in saying that some of the curry pies and the beef pies are really

00:32good chicken pies.

00:33A good pie is a good pie and I'm not able to say I like a hot pie so if there's a curry

00:41or a chilli pie I'm right into that but in saying that it's pretty hard to beat a good

00:47old plain bean pie.

00:48So this is a plain chunky beef pie so really nice colour, nice golden colour, losing a

00:56little bit of patchiness here and there but out we give them a score of three so we've

01:00got three is extremely good, two is industry standard and one is below industry standard

01:09and then we look at the uniformity, the colour and then we cut it and we look at the amount

01:15of, the thickness of the pastry and the bake and the thickness is really good, bakes a

01:20little bit under and the amount of filling in it and then it goes, another one goes into

01:26the pie warmer, comes out and it gets, for aroma, it gets taste of the filling, taste

01:33of the pastry and whether the meat's sloppy or that it's firm enough without being blakey

01:41and then it gets a score and at the end of the day they all get added up and that's how we think.

01:48The vision I had when we started is because I've been a repair person for bakeries for

01:5225 years so the thing was for me was you had to be able to eat your pie as you drove.

02:00That's genius.

02:01Because 80% of the pies you buy today the arse end will fall out of them.

02:04And that's what makes me not like pies.

02:06That's right.

02:07And that's why, and our pies they won't fall apart and that's the big thing we pushed you

02:13know so and our bakers have worked on it to do it and we're really happy with that.

02:18Millet baguettes we have here from my book, Promise and Fulfillment and they're a very

02:24basic recipe.

02:25They have a millet sourdough starter, millet flour, some tapioca starch, a little bit of

02:33psyllium husk, salt and water.

02:35That's all there is to it.

02:36Basically the favourite of all artisan bakers, flour, salt and water, and thyme, of course

02:44lots of thyme.

02:45And there's so much magic you can create with those ingredients.

02:47Absolutely, yep there is.

02:48Now I'm not one of the judges but I was lucky enough to snag a little olive focaccia from

02:53Chris's stand.

02:54I'm going to tell you how good it is.

02:57It's so good.

03:05Fresh from the oven, so salty and crispy and spongy.

03:11I can just imagine mopping up a delicious pasta with this, 10 out of 10.

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