Thorpdale Bakery’s Jon Marsh has achieved the pie-maker’s dream; reaching the podium in the Great Aussie Pie Competition.
Mr Marsh won bronze in not just one category, but for all three pies entered – classic meat, meat and mushroom and Thai chicken – beating out hundreds of entries.
“I have won ribbons in competitions in the past with other bakeries, but never through my own and this is the hardest competition,” Mr Marsh said.
“I knew that we could hold our own, but I didn’t know we would make the podium.”
Mr Marsh opened the bakery in November 2011 with his partner Sonja Perin, after cooking meals at the town’s pub since moving to the area in 2007.
The trained pastry chef and former Australian Army soldier said he had always dreamed of opening his own bakery in a small country town and in 2011 it was a matter of being in the “right place at the right time at the right town”.
“With the army I’ve lived in many towns across Australia and I’ve never found anywhere like Thorpdale,” Mr Marsh said.
“The community is great. They get behind everyone who wants to do something in the town. That’s what I like about Thorpdale.”
Ms Perin said the town took pride in the bakery’s achievements.
“We won the award, but it’s like everyone won it,” she said.
Mr Marsh said he aspired to go for gold and, from the feedback received this year, had a chance to improve.
“Sonja sold the pies I had set aside to enter in the competition, so we had to use ones from the shelf,” he said.
“You treat competition pies a bit differently. We don’t store them on wire wracks and that was one of the negative comments we had, the wire marks on the bottom of the pie.”
Mastering patron-favourites meat and meat and mushroom, Mr Marsh’s Thai chicken recipe was something different.
“I worked at a prestigious bakery in Canberra and there were two of us going for head pastry chef,” Mr Marsh said.
“We had to come up with a new chicken recipe. The other guy made chicken and leek. The Thai chicken was obviously better, as I got the job, and I have been making it ever since.”
In addition to the certificates Mr Marsh received recognising the bakery as selling award-winning pies, the Thorpdale Bakery will also appear in an Official Great Aussie Pie Competition app, making it a great enticement for tourism.
Not that the extra-attention is much-needed – the bakery has a loyal following of locals and visitors alike, according to Mr Marsh.
“The nicest feedback I ever received was from someone who said that after eating our bread, they don’t like eating bread from anywhere else,” Mr Marsh said.
