Slow Dough
Local masters of the slow art of artisan baking kicked buns and cleaned the floor at Melbourne's Australian Artisan Baking Cup.
Way before it sped up and became industrialised, way before any strains of wheat and gluten intolerance raised their unwelcome heads, bread used to be made slowly. Artisan bread is made with a gentle hand, employing traditional methods and natural ingredients, and allowing for lots and lots of time for the culture to do its own thing. The ingredients are basic, and simply by tweaking fundamental techniques such as fermentation, time and baking, a whole raft of different types of breads can be produced.
Rob Howard is the owner of 'Grainaissance Artisan Bakers' in Osborne Park. Unlike many bakers, they're a wholesale outlet whose bread can be found on menus at eateries around Perth, including Bistro Felix, Beaufort Street Merchant and Caffe Peckish.
Rob is a staunch advocate of artisan baking. After spending half of his childhood in the kitchen, he began work as an apprentice chef at the age of fifteen before moving on to pastry cooking. But after discovering the many living permutations of sourdough ten years ago, he eventually turned his hand to artisan baking.
"Sourdough is fascinating because you are dealing with something that is alive, that you can control," says Rob.
"It uses no commercial yeasts, just natural culture. You need to look after it, feed it and care for it on a daily basis. It's really not like any other food. There are no additives put into it to save time and money. When I first discovered it I did a lot of experimenting until I had created my own sourdough formula using a combination of malt flour, honey, wheat flour and slow fermentation. It grew and grew, and we started making bread from it after the third week".
But there were a few hiccups in the embryonic stages, and that is when fellow artisan baker Leon Bailey entered his life.
"I had some trouble with the first few batches and there weren't many people in Perth making sourdough to talk to about it. I had read a few of Leon's articles in 'Leading Edge' baking magazine, so I contacted him. He was very helpful, and we stayed in touch".
The Melbourne-based Australian Artisan Baking Cup, which has been running for three years now, was the brainchild of Leon Bailey, who modeled the Australian version on international baking competitions such as Italy's SIGEP, in which Australia came second in the bread baking section this year. It's an enormous coup. Leon's dream is to end a team to the creme de la creme of baking championships, Paris' La Coupe du Monde Boulangerie, which is held every three years.
This year, along with his colleague Trevor Sims, Rob was the 2009 winner of the Australian Artisan Baking Cup competition, thanks to his winning interpretation of the Ettamogah Pub as an artistic (and entirely edible) centrepiece. Rob also took home wining trophies for his ciabatta and two of his baguettes, while Trevor won trophies for his croissant, Danish and stollen.
"It was pretty embarrassing actually," recalls Rob over the multiple wins.
"There we were, two blokes from Western Australia, and a table loaded with trophies. I think we had about nine between us in the end".
The Cup's competitiveness is becoming increasingly fierce as each year passes. This year there were 25 competitors from all States, including Sydney-based pastry wizard, Adriano Zumbo of MasterChef fame. The judging is stringent, and time restrictions must be adhered to.
"We had one hour the day before to prepare our ferments, which we had to fly over to Melbourne in a bottle," says Rob.
"And then when we competed we started at 6am, with tools down at 2pm, which included cleaning up and preparing the tables for judging. We were meant to have three people in our team and we were one person short, so Trevor and I had to work extra hard".
As if that wasn't taxing enough, the duo will be heading over to Italy in January for the SIGEP competitions, and this time they'll be taking a teammate, Dean Gibson.
"It's going to be fantastic, although we're going to be so busy. It's already late in the year and the team needs to practice together a certain amount of times before we go. So it will be pretty crazy between now and January".
