Grove baker boasts nation’s best

IT’S a claim echoed in every corner of the country that once again undisputedly belongs to the Bellarine: Australia’s best pie.

Ocean Grove bakery Rolling Pin Pies and Cakes is the toast of national bakers after winning Baking Association of Australia’s best pie competition at Moonee Valley Racecourse last week.

Rolling Pin racked up three golds among 15 total medals for its perfect pastries, bringing home a cabinet-full of silverware and breaking bread at an afternoon tea with Victoria Governor Linda Dessau.

A new addition to the baker’s cabinet, the creamy mushroom and truffle pie, was named the best overall pie in Australia for 2022, just moments after winning the first-ever mushroom category.

It’s the second consecutive year and third time overall the local bakery has claimed the honour, after its surf and turf won the same award in 2021 and its jumbo chunky beef collected the 2013 prize.

Rolling Pin also took out this year’s seafood section with its Thai red curry prawn finger-licker, while its three-cheese, beef and bacon also won gold in the flavoured beef division.

The local bakery also took home 11 silver medals and a bronze from the competition, where judges taste thousands of entries from hundreds of the country’s top bakeries for a three-day contest to coincide with National Pie Day on June 1.

Rolling Pin owner Nathan Williams said he was thrilled for the tasty truffle treat to earn the bakery further recognition.

“Some pie makers go their whole life without winning one of these awards, so to win it three times, and two in a row, is so exciting,” he said.

“It was a surprise that the judges would judge a mushroom pie, being vegetarian, as the overall winner of the competition.

“The mushroom section has only recently been created to give it its own category. It was something that I really wanted to have a crack at it.

“I played with the recipe and tried to develop it and take it to another level, and it looks like I’ve done that.”

Rolling Pin became a victim of its own success on the weekend as news spread. A combination of extreme demand, staffing shortages and equipment malfunction meant it sold out of the award-winner on Saturday, just hours after announcing its win.

Mr Williams assured customers the mouth-watering mushroom morsels would be in plentiful supply from this week.