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Bake off! Melbourne Food and Wine Festival's Artisan Bakery a baker's delight

Cathy Gowdie

Doughnuts from Tivoli Road Bakery.
Doughnuts from Tivoli Road Bakery.Supplied

People like to show Justin Gellatly their buns, and their breads. Most of all, they like to show him their doughnuts. Since the star British baker, who made the breakfast buns for Kate and Wills' wedding, opened a London baking school and published his second cookbook, food lovers have been prone to posting snapshots of the treats they've cooked from his recipes. "I see a lot of my doughnuts, which have been made by home bakers, on Twitter," he says.

Gellatly will have a stint helming the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival's pop-up artisan bakery in Queensbridge Square and share the recipe for breakfast rolls he baked for the royal hitching. As one of the festival's rotating roster of bakers-in-residence, he will hold small classes for fewer than a dozen cooks.

Visitors who call at the on-site shop will have the chance to buy specialties, such as those sought-after doughnuts, or perhaps cut-to-size pieces of Gellatly's massive seven-kilogram sourdough Cathedral Loaf.

Justin Gellatly will share his secrets in small classes at the  artisan bakery.
Justin Gellatly will share his secrets in small classes at the artisan bakery.Supplied
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Daily take-home selections will depend on what has been made that day, and who's working the ovens. New Zealand-raised Dean Brettschneider, a globetrotting baker with interests from Copenhagen to Singapore, might offer fig-and-aniseed sourdough or individual apple-fennel pork pies. Eric Kayser, of Paris' Maison Kayser, will be among the guest bakers, as will home-grown baking gurus Michael James, of Tivoli Road Bakery, and sourdough maestro John Downes.

Anyone can stop by from 7.30am throughout the festival. The bakery cafe will be built from Custom Cargo containers given a rustic edge with upcycled timber furniture. Visitors will be able to enjoy pastries, wine, light meals from a menu by Peter Rowland catering services or coffee from a roster of champion baristas. An outdoor area by Glasshaus will provide green space, an edible garden and a reminder of the bakery's sustainability credentials: a Closed Loop system will compost food waste, which will be distributed to local farmers.

Hands-on workshops, with topics and presenters changing daily, can be booked online. They include Vietnamese restaurateur Ms Vy demonstrating the finer points of home-made banh mi. Another day, Sicilian cooking school owner Fabrizia Lanza will show how to make traditional cannoli.

North-east Victorian butter specialist Naomi Ingleton, of The Butter Factory at Myrtleford, will show how easy it is to make butter at home.
North-east Victorian butter specialist Naomi Ingleton, of The Butter Factory at Myrtleford, will show how easy it is to make butter at home. Melanie Faith Dove

There will be classes on making bread, and north-east Victorian butter specialist Naomi Ingleton, of The Butter Factory at Myrtleford, will show how easy it is to make butter at home. It will be, she says, a "practical, hands-on butter experience – we'll go step by step through the art of traditionally fermented butter, creme fraiche and buttermilk". Each participant will leave with the fresh butter, buttermilk and ricotta they make on the day, together with a better understanding of how to look after butter at home, all the instructions and a few recipes.

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"I might even bring along a sneaky piece of our buttermilk fudge to have as a treat," she says.

The bakers will work with commercial equipment, giving classes an up-close look at the Vanrooy brand used at bakeries such as Phillippa's, Baker D. Chirico and La Madre Bakery, but as far as Gellatly is concerned, a home baker's most useful tools are electronic scales and a good pair of hands. "The main things are passion and enthusiasm and, of course, practice helps."

Bill Granger will offer a three-course menu.
Bill Granger will offer a three-course menu.Supplied

Gellatly's sourdough starter has been blessed, literally, at a cathedral, and his doughnuts, adorned with everything from caramel and salted honeycomb to spiced toffee-apple custard, have a real-world and online following that's getting too big to be described as cult.

He grew up surrounded by home baking. "My mother was a really keen baker, baking amazing things like scones, biscuits and flapjacks, mostly for packed lunches and fishing trips. She loved baking bread, but never got it right, most of the time over-proving it and baking bricks." Gellatly was the only one in the family who would eat her bread, but he loved it because it had "such a great flavour of yeast and was really tangy as well".

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It was enough to set him on the path to a career as a chef, but it was not until he went to work at Fergus Henderson's fabled St John in 2000 that he began to specialise in pastry. Madeleines were his first baking love. "I have never got tired of making and baking them and, if I do say so myself, I make the best madeleines."

Since starting, he has observed a surge of interest in home baking. "What's driving the interest is mainly the TV show The Great British Bake Off – friends have bake clubs and meet up to do the technical challenge. Also, people are a lot more aware of what they eat, cooking and baking themselves, controlling what they put in their food and finding out that it's great fun and also tastes great – well, most of the time."

It's an interest that led Gellatly and his business partner to open a baking school in 2013 as part of their Bread Ahead wholesale and retail bakery. He has also published his second cookbook, Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding: Sweet and Savoury Recipes from Britain's Best Baker.

Aspiring bakers should not be frightened of yeast, he says. "Yeast is a good starting platform to start baking. You will need some practice with it, but when you see the delights of sourdough – natural yeast – you'll never look back."

Those who sign up for his classes need no experience. "Just come with an open mind and enthusiasm and I will show you the ways of the Jedi baker."

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Bill Granger, The man whose extravagantly creamy scrambled eggs and sunny-side-up approach to cookery launched 1000 cafe imitators will return to his home town for a one-off brunch at the Festival Artisan Bakery and Bar. On March 10, Granger will host 200 guests. The three-course menu selected from Granger's greatest hits will begin with a glass of bubbly and include tea or coffee for $75.

Festival Artisan Bakery and Bar, Queensbridge Square, February 27-March 15, free entry 7.30am-late.

Kids' stuff

"Being covered in flour is every kid's baking dream, right?" It's more a statement than a question from Tez Kemp, of Geelong's much vaunted La Madre Bakery. Kemp is among the gun bakers holding free cooking classes for children aged five to eight and nine to 13 every weekend of the festival at the Festival Artisan Bakery and Bar.

■ Participants in La Madre's Little Foodies Corner classes will make pizza dough and add toppings of their choice. "With Easter on the horizon, we will also teach them how to mould a kids'-sized – large – hot-cross bun, marking it with a traditional cross," says Kemp. In keeping with La Madre's practices, they will use certified organic flour, seasonal pizza toppings and biodynamic vine fruits free from additives and preservatives.

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"It is a fantastic way for kids to explore food, as breadmaking is a fun, entertaining and educational activity," says Kemp. Children enjoy the chance to "be creative and get their hands dirty".

"Bread-baking classes work best when they are engaging, allowing the kids to work hands on with the bread dough."

At the end of the session, the young bakers take home their baked pizzas and hot-cross buns.

Little Foodies Corner will have a range of presenters, including Mill and Bakery (cupcake decorating) and Phillippa Grogan (pizza).

■ More fun for children at the festival might include a raw-food class at St Ali by former professional cyclist and food science graduate Patrick Drapac, of Pat's Veg (March 8, $25).

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■ There will be free garden tours and scarecrow-making classes by the Little Veggie Patch Co at the Federation Square car park, plus $20 hands-on gardening workshops as part of the riverside Open Kitchen weekend on February 28-March 1.

 

 

 

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