If you plan to eat your way across Australia, you can’t go past the assortment of unique and downright delicious Aussie bakery teats. While not everything has its origins in Australian cuisine, we’ve adopted and perfected a variety of sweet and savoury foods.
Your classic Australian bakery will bake house fresh bread, cakes, biscuits and an assortment of hot and savoury foods, with most costing little more than the change from your wallet. You can dine in and grab one of our many types of coffee or tea, or grab it to go in a takeaway paper bag. Either way, you’re in for a treat.
If you’re not too sure what to try, we’ve put together our top 7 treats you can find in any good bakery around the country.
Feature Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash
7 Best Australian Bakery Treats to Try
1. Vanilla slice
Ah, the humble vanilla slice. This one is the perfect sweet treat. Often referred to as the French vanilla slice, this dessert starts off with layers upon layers of buttery puff pastry, topped off with set vanilla custard. It’s common to also have a final layer of puff pastry on top, with a thin layer of vanilla icing to finish it off.
Most bakeries will bake and assemble this dessert and sell it by the slice. You’ll be looking at only around $4 to $6 for one of these delicious bakery favourites.
2. Caramel slice
If the French vanilla slice looks appealing to you, just wait until you meet its decadent cousin, the caramel slice. Commonly referred to as millionaires shortbread, this slice has three distinct layers, starting with a thick layer of crunchy shortbread as its base, gooey and delicious caramel filling in the centre and topped off with a thin layer of chocolate.
You can also expect to pay between $4–$6 on average for a slice, or more if you want seconds, which we definitely recommend.
3. Meat pies
People from all over the world should be aware of the famous Aussie meat pie by now. As an adopted national dish, you can find us eating them for lunch, dinner, as a snack and at every event from footy games to birthday parties. The list goes on.
Our love for the meat pie has grown to an assortment of different fillings, with many bakeries having their own specialty flavours. Make sure you get in early, as it’s common for the more popular flavours to be sold out well before lunch time.
The Aussie meat pie is a handheld treat, with a delicious filling encased in flaky pastry. While the most common filling is ground beef with a rich, thick gravy, some types of pie fillings you may find to be downright strange, such as cheeseburger or lasagna pies.
Some more Aussie favourites:
- Chunky steak
- Steak and mushroom
- Chicken and vegetables
- Vegetable
- Curry (we’ve seen everything from Thai green curry pies to butter chicken pies)
- Cottage pie (a traditional beef pie with a generous serving of mashed potatoes on top)
Before you tuck into your first meat pie, check out our article on how to eat classic Australian foods.
A meat pie will cost around $5, depending on the filling.
4. Sausage rolls
Not far behind the meat pie as our nation’s favourite snack is the alrighty sausage roll. The name comes from the rolled up meat mixtures (normally beef, pork or a mixture), which is then wrapped in a flaky pastry.
To really enjoy a sausage roll like an Aussie, squirt on some tomato sauce. Although be careful of the individual-serve sauce contraptions—as they tend to have a mind of their own.
Most bakeries will sell sausage rolls for $3 to $5 on average.
5. Vegemite scroll
As a nation absolutely obsessed with our Vegemite, we’ve resorted to putting it in almost everything. Many travellers may not understand why we love this spread so much, but with over 22 million jars sold every year, it’s one of the most famous Australian foods.
The vegemite scroll is a soft, delicious bread dough, spread with vegemite and sprinkled with cheese, before being rolled into a log and cut for scrolls.
One of these will set you back $3 to $5 dollars.
6. Lamington
Is it a trip to Australia if you didn’t munch on a lamington? The origins of this sponge-based cake are unclear, with some certain it was devised by a French-born chef of the Governor of Queensland, Lord Lamington, who used what ingredients were available to feed their guests. Others claim it was invented by complete accident when a sponge cake was dropped into melted chocolate.
However the story goes, we are thankful either way for the modern lamington. The lamington is made up of a soft, airy vanilla sponge cake, dipped in melted chocolate and covered generously with dessicated coconut. Some varieties will include a layer of raspberry jam or cream between the layers of sponge.
Keep any loose change handy, as a large lamington ‘cube’ will usually cost under $5.
7. Pavlova
Saving perhaps the best until last, the pavlova is perhaps one of the tastiest sweet treats you can find at an Aussie bakery, in this writer’s humble opinion.
Again, the origins of this dessert are unclear and you will often find Australians and New Zealanders arguing over who first made this iconic dessert. We could argue over the origins of the pavlova all day, or we could all just enjoy this treat and be thankful for it.
The pavlova has a meringue base, with a crisp outside and delicate, airy inside. Traditionally, it’s topped with whipped cream and an assortment of seasonal fruit, such as strawberries, blueberries and kiwi fruit, however you can add almost any type of fruit on top and have a delicious end result.
Pavlovas can often be sold as a large, cake-sized dish for sharing, which can set you back $20 or more, but can also be sold as smaller individual sized desserts, which will cost anywhere between $5 and $7.
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