After five years at Maitland Gaol Carolyn McIntyre thought she knew what hard toil was.
But after opening Lady Blackbird Sourdough Pastry in Maitland's High Street last month she's been burning the midnight oil, night after night, to keep up with demand.
And that's why you'll hear music blasting from the pint-sized bakery at all hours. The artisan baker left her Jailhouse Rock days behind when she closed Blackbird Artisan Bakery at the Gaol in 2019 but she still likes to bake with a beat.
"I find it meditative to bake. And I like to listen to music while I do. Everything from my Australian soundtrack, which includes Jimmy Barnes, Paul Kelly and Archie Roach, to heavy rock 'n' roll and even Beethoven. It depends on the time of night and whether I need to keep awake. I often dance in the kitchen while baking. People will think that sounds kooky but it's true," she laughs.
She boogies as she bakes three varieties of sourdough daily - an unbleached white sourdough that's sweet with a light crust and spongy textured centre, a seven-grain wholemeal with rolled barley, and a dark rye. Also, a couple of specialty loaves such as a 100 per cent spelt, pumpkin sunflower, charcoal turmeric or rye fruit with figs, apricots and walnut.
"I make around 600 loaves a week and they sell out fast," she says. The sourdough croissants, Danishes, Portuguese tarts, pies and quiche do too.
"I've been on my own from the beginning and I had to go to night-time baking to keep up. I like to make everything from scratch but there just weren't enough hours in the day, so I had to outsource the pies and quiches, but that's about to change."
That's because the bopping baker has a new dance partner.
"I've just employed a new baker - Geoff Germon - who is a trade baker with 30 years' solid experience, so from today everything will be made fresh in-house."
Carolyn - or Lady Blackbird as her customers call her - is no slouch in the experience stakes either, having kneaded thousands of loaves in her time.
"I've worked in the hospitality industry for 50 years," she says. "Like everyone, I ate a lot of bread, but during my pregnancies I became gluten intolerant and for 15 years I didn't touch it. It was only when I went back to TAFE around 2010 to do an artisan baking and pastry course that I discovered I could eat sourdough because of the way it was made."
It was a game-changer and she's now a passionate advocate for slow-fermented sourdough.
"Sourdough ripens and metabolises the gluten," Carolyn explains. "What that means, in simple terms, is the longer you ferment the sourdough the less gluten it contains. That's why long, cold fermentation is so important."
At Lady Blackbird the fermentation is between 24 and 36 hours, depending on the flour: "Some flours take longer than others, like the ancient grains Khorasan and spelt. They have a fragile gluten matrix that needs longer fermentation."
Basic breadmaking contains very few things - flour, water, salt and culture - but it's the quality of the ingredients that elevate a regular loaf into a standout sourdough, which is why Carolyn uses flour that is single origin, single variety and farm direct for her first-rate loaves.
"I believe in supporting producers and small family businesses like myself, so I work with John Campbell from Provenance Flour and Malt and Kevin Sherrie from First Pass Milling, who mills and ages our 100 per cent pure flour," she says. "I do love a dark rye. I had a baker from Berlin visit recently and he cooked his grains before adding them to the ferment and it changed the taste completely. It's called a scalded ferment and I'm going to play with that soon."
She's also going to add sugar-free Danishes and brownies, and maybe gluten-free goodies down the track. There are no seats inside, just a fabric-covered counter with a cash register and tray with daily pastries, and a table of warm loaves of fresh sourdough, with Carolyn whirling between bags of flour and ovens behind. But with bread this tasty, what more do you need?
