The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

G'day from Australia

Centeōtl's picture
Centeōtl

G'day from Australia

Hi peoples,

I'm from Drouin, Victoria in Australia (about a 1 hour drive to Melbourne where I used to live). I've been baking bread for just over 1/2 a year now. I started with sourdough after I got fed up paying $7.00 a loaf. I learnt to cook at an early age so I'm not a novice to cooking at all and I really got into baking when I moved to regional Victoria. It turns out I'm actually good at baking and then found out my grandfather and great grandfather were both Master Bakers (when I first heard that phrase I thought my bio-father was taking the mickey hahahaha) anyhoo, hoping it's genetic!

I do post my latest stuff on Insta' https://www.instagram.com/duane.hennessy/ 

I've been making my own soygurt recently and getting into Lassis and I did make some soygurt and sourdough pancakes with mixed success.

I'm vegan so I often have to convert any recipes I like to vegan which is usually swapping our milk for plant based milks or water and eggs for flax-eggs.

I recently got into other types of flour and I'm having issues with sprouted wheat flour at the moment so still a work in progress.

Apart from that, I cartoon, I fix databases for a living, I do martial arts and I want to win the lottery :-D lol

yozzause's picture
yozzause

Hi Centeotl and welcome from Perth, a few Aussies around this site. Interestingly the story of relatives that were bakers, the term Master baker is often misused and to my knowledge in Australia refered to the owner baker rather than an extra higher qualification. I do know a few bakers that have given themselves that title Masterbaker where they might have been better swapping the k for a t.  i'm happy to be refered to as a good baker or even a great baker. i looked at your instagram page and some very nice stuff there well done!

Kind regards Derek

Centeōtl's picture
Centeōtl

Hi Derek,

Nice to know there are other Aussies on here. Yeah, the Master Baker could mean anything, it was interesting because I've only known my bio-father (not the Dad I grew up with) since 2014 when I was 45 years old so I know little about that side of the family to be honest... It feels weird saying that because it's my biological father... Anyway, it came from left-field when they saw I was baking lots. And they were most likely Germans as I think the grandparents, who I've never met, emigrated to England from Germany having ancestors come through Germany from Greece. I'm not an Ancestry.com fan so I'll probably never know the rest haha.

Nice to meet you.

Hanging out for this bloody Spring and Summer weather! 

- Duane

yozzause's picture
yozzause

Hi Duane

My Son in Law  comes from SA  he is a Klenke  and he is from German stock, there is quite a big  German community in SA  and it shows in the names of many places there. I think the weather is pretty good at the moment with lots of green and new growth, it can get just a bit to Hot especially baking toward the end of summer for me, although i have been known to bake when its close to 40. I can also remembering during heatwaves in my younger days when i was working as the dough maker of conventional doughs for a large bakery having to use iced water just to keep the finished dough  temperature right and still decreasing the yeast to slow the BF to the required 4 hours.   

bakeyourownAU's picture
bakeyourownAU

Hey Drouin,

I'm also from Victoria, in Melbourne.

Pleased to meet you both.

I've been baking my own bread for about 1.5 years now, both sourdough and yeasted loaves.

Maybe we could meetup one day post-covid when Victoria comes out of lockdown :)

Centeōtl's picture
Centeōtl

Hey bakeyourownAU,

How're you goin'? You're having it rough at the moment in Melbourne. We moved to Drouin in February just before all this happened so dodged a bullet there. Were living in Oakleigh prior.

Sourdough is great isn't it? I love the long process albeit I have to plan ahead quite a bit to fit it into my weekly routine. There's something calming about kneading dough! :-D

Sure, we could meet up after lockdown in 2036 LOL. I actually work for Coles Head Office, so usually based in Tooronga if I come into work.

What sort of loaves have you baked so far?

For sourdoughs I've made: White, wholemeal, cinnamon and raisin (actually sultana as I ran out of raisins), olive bread sourdough, olive and sundried tomato sourdough.
For yeast loaves I've made: White bread, wholemeal, french baguettes which we have with avo-herb dip, thick pizza bases, burger rolls, dinner rolls.
And then I've made coffee cinnamon scrolls, lamingtons, biscuits of different types etc.

Pity I didn't get more into baking earlier in life, I may have avoided being an IT nerd for most of it :-D

Duane.

yozzause's picture
yozzause

Pleased to hear from you too,  BYO AU  Hoping that Victoria  will soon be on top of its Covid problems, We have been doing exceedingly well here in the West and going about most things as normal other than traveling  not so much out of the state but returning to the state.The quarantine seems to be catching returning travellers that have brought it with them. community transmission is zero. A small price to pay for the freedom the general population are enjoying, still social distancing, and rigorous hand washing and sanitising, but masks not required. 

On a lighter note many years ago there was a big catch up of TFL folk in the States  and also one in the UK  so possibly something that Australia should do when normality returns. I did have a catch up with another Baker based here in Perth,  Ross "RossnRoller" and have met 4  other TFL folk internationally  "Ananda" Andy (UK), "Mebake" Khalid (Dubai currently Beirut), "Betsy" and Penny Teo here in Perth and at their home (Malaysia)  Zita here in Perth "Bakingbadly"  (Cambodia)  Guys if you fill in your details  your Avatar will become illuminated and information about where you are from etc can be viewed, i find this most helpful when someone is posting  if you can see where they are domiciled, as any advice offered could be quite different due to their location or particular problem ,its also nice to know a little bit about who you are talking to, its probably time i up dated mine as quite a few things have changed over the years.  you need to go to HOME ; VIEW : EDIT  or i think you can click on the Avatar Kind regards Derek