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.
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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.