Volume 1: July - Welcome

Hi ALL

and thanks very much for taking the time to read our update. We're honored that you are taking interest in us and we're definitely keen to keep you updated on what we're up to. Obviously youve got our Instagram and Facebook pages however we really want to be able to dig a bit deeper with our blog.

Its definitely challenging times with Victoria in lockdown 5 and hopefully we'll come out this week. We are quite fortunate to be in an industry which is essential and while our orders have diminished from the cafes we supply we are grateful most of them have a retail side and as such we are doing as much as we can to support them we hope you can too.

New equipment for pastries (well newish)

As a small artisan bakery we dont have the budget to splash out on equipment and as such we have made a couple of acquisitions that have needed a bit of love and attention. Mostly purchased with no inspection which has created its own surprises. Two of our recent purchases which will help bring our sourdough pastry vision to reality is a pastry laminator/roller and a dough proofer. Both of which will require substantial attention.

On receipt of the laminator we realised that the rollers needed some cleaning up, however to remove the rollers meant the whole machine needed dismantling and in doing so identified nearly all of the 18 sets of bearings were ceased. New belts were ordered and have now arrived and the rollers went off to Ararat engineers to get a bit of love and attention. Now with all the parts back and new bearings the task at hand is to figure out how to reassemble the machine.

The second piece of equipment is a dough proofer/retarder. Again this proofer is primarily for our sourdough pastries. This programmable unit can be set to refrigerates the dough down to 5 degrees Celsius and then to bring the dough gradually up to 28 Celsius with 80% humidity for the perfect proofed pastries... We hope :) A book could be written about what it took to transport this unit from Sydney to Great Western and a weeks delivery turned into a month. Once delivered it was plugged it in and .... nothing. We're currently working with the manufacture and electricians to get to the bottom of it. As this unit is 9 years old there's bound to be other issues.

New products

Bagels have been our latest focus. As we highlighted in a recent Facebook post, bagels were a staple for us in our 10 years in Toronto Canada. We've managed to recreate these using a sourdough recipe and our recent offering, the cinnamon and raisin has been our most popular to date and with no surprise, just toasted with lashings of butter it is bordering on indulgent. Look out for new varieties, and please we are open to suggestions in the comments section below... Two being considered is a chocolate version and we are currently trialing an "everything" bagel which means its got a shed load of toppings.

It seems that fruit has been in abundance this year and the heavily laden lemon trees have gone wild. As such we are bringing our popular lemon tarts back into production this week. These nicely balanced tarts are not too sweet and not too sour. Indulge yourself this week and snap one up.

New suppliers

We are beyond excited this week as we have just secured a new organic dairy suppler. We have known Simon Schulz from Schulz Organic Dairy down in Timboon for over a decade and personally enjoyed their products and we have finally figured out the logistics to have deliveries to Great Western.

Who knew we roasted Australian Coffee right here in the Grampians. Up until now we have been sourcing Australian coffee from New South Wales. Now our good friends and long standing Grampians Produce Group volunteers and members at Grampians Olive Co are roasting coffee beans grown in Australia right here in the Grampians. Our espresso scroll fans will thank you.

New events

As at writing it does look we will be out of lockdown by the weekend just in time for the Mount Zero Warehouse Market to be held at their warehouse in Sunshine on Saturday July 31st. Come along we will be unveiling some special waste related products along with bringing some sweet treats from the bakery. It will be great to catch up with some old acquaintances from our days doing markets when we ran a heritage free range piggery.