It is 5.30am and the Rye Sourdough is on the rise. The birds are chirping merrily in the eucalypts and it is all hands on deck for another day in the life of Murphy’s Creek’s newest bakehouse.
Andrea Wissig is relishing her new routine and shakes her head wistfully when she remembers how it all started. Andrea and her husband Jurgen travelled from their German hometown of Erfurt to wed in Grantham in 1999. A visit to Toowoomba and a fruitless search for a coffee on a Sunday afternoon planted the seed of the idea for their own traditional bakery and coffee house. Nearly 20 years later, the couple has finally realised their dream with the opening of the German Bake and Wurst House on Postmans Ridge Road, one kilometre off the Warrego Highway at Murphy’s Creek. Built in traditional German style with timber framing, the bakery has been a labour of love, persistence, patience and hard work over eight years, weathering hailstorms, floods and illness. Most of that time they have spent apart with Jurgen returning to Europe for work to fund their bakery dream while Andrea coordinated the tradespeople and kept the project on track at home.
The compliments and support from customers since they opened in December 2017 has been a sweet reward for all their efforts. Andrea said, “It makes you feel really good knowing people are enjoying our food and hospitality. It makes all the years of hard work feel worthwhile.” Andrea completed her baking and cake making apprenticeship in Germany but her flair for cooking is a proud family trait. Her parents, Sonja and Bernd, joined them in Australia in 2005 and today the mother and daughter team work side by side baking all the breads and cakes onsite using organic flour and traditional methods. “German style cakes use less sugar so they are delicious but not sickly sweet. We only use quality, organic flour from Kialla Pure Foods on the Darling Downs in our breads because it is important to us to use the best ingredients,” Andrea said.
Their day starts at 5.30am, baking and icing fresh cakes like chocolate marzipan, lemon curd, Black Forest, Berliner donuts, profiteroles, apple strudel and anything else they choose from their treasured recipe book. Their signature bread is a rye sourdough that is made in the Old East German style and takes 22 hours to make. Customers can pop in for a takeaway or relax in the alfresco area and sample the breakfast or lunch menu while enjoying the twitter of native birds and the peaceful bush view. “We love it here. We love everything about it. The birds, the nature, the weather. Everything is always green.” You can find the German Bake and Wurst House at 108 Postmans Ridge Road. They are open 9am to 4pm Monday to Friday (except Wednesday) and 9am to 4pm on the weekend. Like them on Facebook for updates on their weekly cake and bread selection.
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