Early to rise
Photographer Bonnie Savage shoots Tivoli Road Bakery’s Michael James holding a tray of freshly baked sourdough.
Michael shares that the first job at the bakery each day is to feed the sourdough starter, followed by mixing the dough at 6am. The bread is baked from 4am to 8am daily.
On a roll
A board of Tivoli Road’s breakfast rolls waits to be snapped up.
House-made brioche buns are stuffed with fried eggs from the Macedon Ranges, bacon and tomato kasundi [a spiced relish]. The brioche is made at 6.30am and the breakfast rolls are prepared in time for the bakery to open at 7.30am.
Step by step
Head baker Emily Hart lifts glossy croissants and Danishes from the oven.
It’s a three-day process to prepare Tivoli Road’s croissants. Day one is mixing the dough. Day two is ‘laminating’, wherein a thick slab of butter is encased in a three-sided dough envelope. A tool called a ‘dough-sheeter’ is used to pin out the dough, building up the folds to achieve a flaky finish – this can take several hours. With butter being such an important element, Tivoli Road sources a special cultured version from St Davis Street, a producer based in Melbourne’s Fitzroy.
Hole in one
Front-of-house manager Jihee Shin shows off a plate of Tivoli Road’s morning buns.
Doughnuts are one of the bakery’s biggest sellers. Salted caramel is the signature flavour, but jam, lemon curd and custard are also regular features. The bakery puts out special fillings each weekend, such as lamington, key lime pie and chocolate-hazelnut praline. The doughnuts are made with the same pastry as the croissants. A strip of dough is soaked in spiced-citrus sugar, baked in a muffin tin, and finally rolled in cinnamon sugar and filled.
Explore all of the tempting breads and pastries in The Tivoli Road Baker.