Single-minded artisan bakers band together at Flour Market

• Profile: The new artisans

The produce of small, artisan bakeries with a single theme is selling like hot cakes at the moment.

Across town there are businesses which sell only handmade macaroons. Or waffles, brownies and even crumpets.

On Saturday, some of them will flaunt their wares at the Flour Market, a bazaar to showcase Melbourne's specialist baking community. At the first event, in October, produce sold out in two hours.

This time the Flour Market - at The Baron Said in Fitzroy from 9am - will comprise 14 stalls, including Dr Marty's crumpets and Shop Ramen steamed buns. The proceeds from a coffee stall at the market will go towards building a bakery at a Kenyan orphanage.

Holly Carthew, co-owner of Pure Pie with husband Michael, said the event celebrates the high standard of baking in Melbourne but has a street-market style.

''It's nice to be able to just go along, take a trestle table and sell some pies. It's so accessible, people come in their droves.''

She says their pies - in gourmet flavours from beef, cheddar and Guinness to chicken and white wine - are not ''the tasteless, average pie with all the crap in it''.

The fillings are made from local free-range meat and home-made stock. The pie lids are crimped by hand and the bases are made of sour cream pastry.

Three years ago the Carthews set out to make old-fashioned pies like those of Holly's Kiwi grandmother.

From a small stall at a Flemington farmers' market, Pure Pie now makes 2000 pies a week, supplying more than 40 shops and nine markets, and with its own shop in Bay Street, Port Melbourne.