Woodend Market

So what do you do on a lazy sunny Sunday when you have to take it easy? I know! You hitch a lift with the oldies along leafy shaded roads to the Woodend Market!

Of course, it being a Sunday, it was about lunch time by the time we got there and, as we meandered through town I spied Bourkies Bakehouse on the corner opposite the markets. They were quite proudly advertising that that they were Vanilla Slice Champions. That's a pretty damn big claim. And I figure I'm fairly well qualified to offer an opinion. Besides, there's something about warm flaky pastry, meaty filling, and tomato sauce that just gets me salivating, so it seemed like a logical choice for lunch.


Here you can see a few different types of vanilla slice, as well as custard tarts, apple slice, apple pie, and some jam-and-cream buns.


Please excuse the worse-than-usual quality of the pictures - I was stuck with my phone and the camera in it ain't so great... hard to believe the model I was using a few years ago took pictures that far surpass the last two phones I've had... but I digress. This is a "charming" and "quaint" little moving display in the corner of the bakehouse... some things are just a little too cutesy for me...


We ordered, clockwise from front-right, vanilla slice, regular sausage roll, steak and onion pie, curry steak pie, mini apple pies, and a plain steak pie. D had already eaten his large sausage roll by the time I got to the table, so I'm not sure how it stacks up in size to the regular. I loved the sausage roll - perfectly flaky pastry (which was repeated in all the pies), not an overly greasy filling, great flavours. The steak and onion pie was delicious, with big chunks of onion sitting on top of hearty gravy-and-meaty filling sitting just under the pastry top. The steak and curry pie was apparently almost like someone had made a beef curry on rice, then cooked it in a pie case. The plain steak was reported to also be pretty good. D and D-W thoroughly enjoyed their apple pies.

And the vanilla slice? Hm, it was pretty damn good. But a "champion" vanilla slice? I'm not sure, I think the one I had in Sorrento (someone help me out - would that have been at the Sorrento Village Bakehouse?) topped this one. But it's a VERY close call. Take a trip to Woodend on the 3rd Sunday of the month and decide for yourself :-)