Orange Spot Bakery - Australia's best pasties : Amber puts her tastebuds to the test in the Adelaide Coast region of South Australia

Nick Davey is definitely a morning person. While most of us are snuggly tucked up in bed his day is already well underway. He gets up in the wee small hours and heads off to work so we can all enjoy lovely fresh bread and baked goodies.

For most of use the humble pie or pastie is an Aussie tradition part of a day at the footy or lunch on a cold, wet and windy day. But for some, like Nick, it's a way of life. Step inside the Orange Spot Bakery on the Anzac Highway at Glenelg and not only do you see a display of mouth-watering pastries - but an enormous array of award winning trophies.

The gallery of awards, medals, cups and trophies represent 33 years in the bakery industry for Nick and Margaret Davey, owners of the Orange Spot Bakery. That's how long they've been honing their recipes for breads, pastries and pies and, of course their famous pasties, declared Australia's best - not once but twice.

Nick Davey, 'Orange Spot Bakery': "We still prepare all our veggies by hand - the pumpkin, carrots, potatoes and turnips. Oops, I've just given away the recipes of what we use!"

I've got a feeling Nick's not giving away all of his secrets and you can't blame him. His recipe beat more than 100 bakeries to have his pastie named Australia's best. There's been a lot of trail and error involved in developing the recipe - but Nick reckons he won't be happy until he gets a perfect score.

Nick Davey, 'Orange Spot Bakery': "For the perfect pastie we're looking for good colour which shows it's evenly baked. Nice and golden on top and nice and brown on the bottom. When we cut the pastie we can smell it straight away. Inside you're looking for an even dispersion of the carrots, potato, pumpkin and meat."

After baking all night, Nick and Margaret packed their goodies into a suitcase and jumped on the red-eye flight to Sydney to hand deliver their entries in the national competition.

Margaret Davey, 'Orange Spot Bakery': "Pasties are a South Australian product through and through. You can't get them better than in South Australia. We were hoping this year with the competition being in Sydney that there wouldn't be many entries. This is it, this is the one we thought. We got over there and there's pasties lined up for as far as the eye could see and I thought oh what have we done? But it all worked out well."

It sure did - they won the best bread category as well! What's next? Well, these baking champions now have their eyes set on producing Australia's best vanilla slice - and I've got a feeling they're in with a chance!

At the recent Adelaide Show they scooped the pool again with 9 firsts - including best pastie of course.

To try their award winning goodies head down to Glenelg where you'll find the Orange Spot Bakery at 752 Anzac Highway. They're open from 7am til 4pm seven days a week.

Orange Spot Bakery
752 Anzac Hwy
Glenelg
Ph 8295 5799
Open: 7am - 4pm daily

Publised 26th September 2010