Category Archives: nsw

Hayden’s Pies, Ulladulla

bakery, country, nsw, sausage roll

2/166 Princes Hwy, Ulladulla, NSW
haydenspies.com.au

Away for a long weekend at Lake Conjola on New South Wales’ south coast, I checked out the top eating joints in the area. The number one ranked eatery in the nearest large town of Ulladulla was Hayden’s Pies. And before we left, a work colleague of my wife informed her that while we were down there, we had to try Hayden’s Pies. So naturally we did.

Hayden's Pies

The main strip of Ulladulla is situated running up and over a steep hill from sea level at Ulladulla Harbour. Hayden’s Pies is situated on the site of a large hardware store just over the crest of the hill from the centre of town, the the Princes Highway – or the Princes Pieway as indicated on the sign.

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Drummoyne Bakehouse Cafe, Drummoyne, pt. 2

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, vanilla slice

Last time I visited the Drummoyne Bakehouse, I reviewed the sausage roll and one of the two different vanilla slices available. Yes, they had two types: one with vanilla icing, and one with iced sugar on top. I chose the vanilla icing, and the slice earned the maximum 10/10 with its combination crisp shard-like pastry, rich vanilla custard, and extra vanilla and sweetness from the icing.

This time, I had to try the second option. After selecting a pie for the savoury part of lunch, I took it and my icing sugar slice over to Drummoyne Park, to sit in the shade of a tree and let our dog play in the grass while eating.

Vanilla slice, Drummoyne Bakehouse

The slice is the same construction as the icing version, with the only difference being the dusting of powdered white sugar on top in lieu of the pale yellow icing. The three layers of pastry looks crisp and well baked, thick and biscuity, with lots of flakes evident. The custard is pale yellow and creamy looking.

As with the previous slice, the first bite threatens to demolish the slice, with shards of pastry going everywhere and soft custard oozing out from between the pastry pressure plates. Blobs of custard drip onto the paper bag and I have to manoeuvre the slice carefully through all three rotational axes to avoid more falling out. It’s a nibble and lick job, as biting the layers just squeezes more custard out.

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Christophe’s Pâtisserie Française, Lindfield

bakery, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

364 Pacific Highway, Lindfield, New South Wales

It’s been a long time between drinks here at Snot Block & Roll, mostly precipitated by the acquisition a few months ago of Scully, our toy poodle puppy. Raising a puppy limits time available for other activities, alas reviewing sausage rolls and vanilla slices among them! But happily Scully is growing into an adolescent dog and is becoming trained, so it’s easier to take her on trips and to find spare time once more.

On this fine spring day, partly cloudy so not too hot, we ventured forth on an expedition to a small local market at East Lindfield. It was indeed small, but pleasant because it wasn’t the same stallholders who travel around the north Sydney area and can be found at a different local market each weekend. There was a burger van and a stall selling Russian food like blinis and pirogies, but we decided to leave the market and seek out a bakery nearby: Christophe’s Pâtisserie Française at Lindfield proper, a short drive west.

Christophe's Patisserie

Christophe’s is part of a row of old style narrow shop fronts directly facing the Pacific Highway in its role as the main artery through Lindfield. It’s noisy and there’s nothing but a strip of bitumen footpath between the highway and the shop fronts. But the patisserie invites with a display of delicious looking French pastries in the window and an impressively boastful array of certificates plastering one window with pictures of gold and silver medals. These turn out to be local business awards, so not an especially wide competition, but still, presumably it means there is something worth checking out here.

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Ryan’s Bakery & Coffee Lounge, Blayney

bakery, cafe, country, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

125 Adelaide St, Blayney NSW
www.facebook.com/Ryans-Bakery-Blayney-115751028489238/

Blayney is a small town on the way from Bathurst to Cowra. We had occasion to stop on the way through for lunch, so naturally I sought out a likely looking bakery for a bit of blogging research. We spotted Ryan’s Bakery & Coffee Lounge, and grabbed a table outside despite the 11°C temperature, since we had a newly acquired puppy in tow and couldn’t take advantage of the warm seats indoors.

Ryan's Bakery & Coffee Lounge

The place had a rustic, country style menu, with a selection of pies the most exotic of which was “bolognese” and a special “sweet chilli chicken”. The woman behind the counter hovered near me as I eyed the selection of cakes and pastries, even following me along the counter as I did my survey to the far end, where I spied what looked like a couple of trays of vanilla slices… except with hot pink icing! I asked the woman if they were vanilla slices, and she said yes. So I considered my order.

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Trappers Bakery, Goulburn

bakery, country, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

4 Sowerby St, Goulburn, New South Wales
trappersbakery.com.au

One fine autumn Saturday we took a driving trip to Goulburn, the first inland city established in Australia, proclaimed as such in 1863. Goulburn is mostly known as a former stop on the long drive between Sydney and Melbourne, and held the distinction of having the most patronised McDonalds outlet in Australia. But with the opening of the Hume Highway bypass in 1992, many travellers now avoid stopping in the city, and it has reverted to a more sleepy country nature.

The Big Merino

The biggest tourist attraction in Goulburn is The Big Merino, a giant concrete sculpture of a ram. Directly across the street from the Big Merino is Trappers Bakery, which was the first hit when I pulled out my phone and searched for “best bakery in goulburn”. So we pulled into the large car park for what is obviously a very popular place. Trappers Bakery is housed in a large rural style brick building with a corrugated iron roof, and it was doing a roaring trade around lunch time, with customers arriving every minute or two. Not only is it a bustling food stop, but adjacent is the Trappers Bakery Motel, offering rooms for travellers on the road.

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Maggio’s Italian Bakery, Cammeray

bakery, city, nsw, sausage roll, special

463 Miller Street, Cammeray, New South Wales
maggios.com.au

The previously reviewed Cammeray Cakes has closed down, but just a few doors down the street now sits Maggio’s Italian Bakery. This is an establishment that was spawned out of the nearby Maggio’s Cafe, which has been an institution in Cammeray since 1998. The new bakery shopfront takes some of the strain from the always busy cafe, allowing people to buy loaves and take-away cakes and pastries without battling the sit-down clientele of the cafe.

Maggio's Bakery

Being an Italian bakery, they are heavy on cannoli, biscotti, bomboloni, and various tortes, but they didn’t have anything resembling a vanilla slice when I scoped the place out. They do however have a pork sausage roll, as well as a small selection of meat pies. I ordered a roll and retreated to a nearby wooden seat under a shady tree outside to inspect their take on the Australian classic.

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Inter Desserts, Artarmon

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

Shop 2, 130 Hampden Rd, Artarmon, New South Wales
www.facebook.com/InterDesserts/

I’ve walked past this place several times on exercise-driven peregrinations, and often been tempted by the luscious looking cakes and pastries on display, but had never been in the right state of hunger to pop in and try something. But on a long Sunday walk I arrived here around lunch time, and decided that now was the time. The cakes looked great, but obviously I had to sample the sausage roll and vanilla slice first.

Inter Desserts

It was a hot day, with the sun beating down hard outside, so I chose one of the two small inside tables and grabbed some cool water from the jug on the counter, while waiting for the woman behind the counter to bring out the selections. The sausage roll comes on a rectangular white plate, while the vanilla slice is served on a traditional circular one.

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Oliver’s Pies, Avalon

bakery, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

Careel Shopping Village, 1 Careel Head Rd, Avalon Beach, New South Wales

Oliver’s Pies is one shop in a tiny “shopping village” consisting of this pie shop, a pizza place, and a chicken and burger joint, on Barrenjoey Road as you head north in Sydney towards Palm Beach. I pulled into the tiny car park (holding about a dozen cars) around 11 am and found that Oliver’s not only makes a wide selection of pies and sausage rolls, but also several sweet treats, including chocolate eclairs, custard tarts, apple pies, and vanilla slices! So naturally the choice from the menu was dictated.

Oliver's Pies

The place was rather popular, even at 11am with plenty of customers pulling up in the car park and picking up a pie. The pie of the day was smoked fish, which sounded intriguing, and I would have tried it had I not been moderately full already from a large breakfast.

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St Malo Bakery, Crows Nest: addendum 2

bakery, city, nsw, vanilla slice

83 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, New South Wales

I’ve reviewed two different vanilla slices from St Malo already, but when I went in recently they had yet another type in the display! The first two were very fancy and really good, and labelled as “pistachio mille feuille” and “vanilla mille feuille”, but this one was simply labelled as “vanilla slice”. It also looked much less fancy and more like the sort of snot block you get at a cheap roadside bakery, rather than something produced by an upmarket French patisserie. It had to be tried!

The first thing I notice is that it’s quite small. The second thing I notice is the price: a whopping $6. That’s the price I’d expect for something much fancier. Well, I know St Malo is a quality bakery, so hopefully it will live up to the outlay. I fork over my $6 and receive a plate with the slice and a knife – no fork. Not to worry, I plan on tackling it the traditional way, by hand.

Vanilla slice, St Malo Bakery

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Blue Mountains Buttery, Katoomba

bakery, country, nsw, vanilla slice

153 Katoomba St, Katoomba, New South Wales
www.bluemts.com.au/11819/blue-mountains-buttery/

Katoomba is a small town in the heart of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, and a perfect destination for a day trip. It’s on the edge of the Blue Mountains National Park, which is part of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, and walking distance from some of the biggest tourist attractions in the park. As such, it has a host of shops, cafes, restaurants, and – strung in a sequence along the main street – three bakeries within the space of about 20 metres. They are on different positions along the poshness to down-to-earthness scale. Possibly the most down-to-earth is the Blue Mountains Buttery, which has some good old working-class vanilla slices where the others tend to go for fancier cakes and pastries.

Blue Mountains Buttery

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