GREG Wilton considers himself one of the lucky ones.
When he did his baking apprenticeship in Brunswick Heads all those years ago, he was taught to make everything from scratch.
He just managed to scrape in before the arrival of the pre-mix – something Greg believes spelled the end of the art of baking.
“All these young guys started coming out of their apprenticeships not knowing what to do. All they knew was how to pull stuff out of a packet and mix it up and put it out there,” he said.
“It became just another job. It’s not hard to get someone to put a kilo of that in, add 500ml of water and 200g butter – it’s pretty much foolproof. There was no real passion in it…and there was no art to it anymore.”
Greg’s desire to get back to basics was the driving force behind Scratch Patisserie, the business he and partner Angie began three years ago. Scratch started out as a wholesale business, but soon found a place at the local farmers markets, where Greg and Angie’s products would sell out week after week.
Everything is made from scratch at their bakery in Mullumbimby (where they have also recently opened a retail shop), including croissants, pastries and breads. They use organic flour, milk and raw sugar, with the flour sourced from Gunnedah and the milk from Norco.
Nothing is done quickly in the bakery – the bread and pastries are made in the slow, traditional way, and can take anything from 24 hours to three days to create.
Greg says the long fermentation helps to develop flavour, and also breaks down the gluten in the bread, making it easy to digest. He says it’s a very different bread to your standard supermarket loaf, which is mixed, made and baked within three hours.
Greg, who is also a dad to a three-year- old and six-month-old, says juggling business and family life can be tough, but there is plenty of job satisfaction, especially the compliments he gets at the market.
“The biggest one is the French. They’ll come and buy something then come back and say: ‘oh it’s so good where did you learn to do this? Did you go to France? ‘, and I’ll go, nah – Bruns Hot Bread Shop mate.”
