Chef’s Corner with Miek Paulus, CEO, Founder, and Sourdough Engineer of Ket Baker

Get to know the hands and minds behind your favourite dishes.

Welcome to Chefs Corner, where we take you behind-the-scenes into the kitchen of a renowned hospitality establishment in regional Victoria. From exploring flavours to discovering seasonal delights, and unpacking food memories, this is all about dishes and the creators behind them.

We caught up with beloved Bellarine and recent Belmont bakery CEO, Founder, and Sourdough engineer, Miek Paulus of Ket Baker. Known for their outstanding croissants, pastries and sourdough loafs, Paulus brings the taste of France into Geelong.

Chefs Corner with Miek Paulus

 

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What is the pastry of the summer? 

We are currently working on the Christmas cake, but haven’t gotten to new pastry flavours yet. With Christmas cake think: one of the best chocolates in the world (which tastes like flowers), lime, blueberry and elderflower.

Where is your favourite culinary destination?

France

Keep up to date with the latest in food and drinks across regional Victoria here.

 

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What is your favourite food memory?

Eating all the fresh produce from markets mid summer on holiday in France; best tomatoes, sweet and juicy, nectarines that melt in your mouth, and, of course, breakfast whilst camping with a croissant with butter and jam.

In your opinion, what makes a great pastry?

Keep it simple and focus on the techniques and ingredients to obtain most humble, but best flavour

What pâtissier technique was the most challenging to master, but something you couldn’t live without now?

Sourdough leavened layered dough (sourdough pastry), absolutely challenging. But to be honest this is more a baker’s technique rather than a patissier technique. The hardest thing to master is your dough and that’s the job of a baker not a patissier.

 

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What is your go-to dessert to take to an event/party?

ChocoMousse and Crème Brûlée

What are you doing when you are not cooking?

Reading, learning, yoga, and family time.

Is the age of a starter important?

This is something I want to debunk. People ask “How old is your starter?”, like it matters. It doesn’t! Let me put things in perspective: if you look at what actually lives in a starter or sourdough culture, it dies and refreshes itself about each 2 weeks roughly. It’s like having very short-living pets that constantly make millions of new babies, and those new babies adjust themselves to what the mum and dad tells them. Meaning if you change flour, temperatures, etc, your starter will in principle change itself and adjust itself to the new environment after about 2 weeks. So it can never become 100 years old. The beginning of the culture will be absolutely gone by the time you’re 100 years further. maybe from an evolutionary point of view it will genetically adjust over a million years. I have taken my starter to Europe, and in the beginning it behaves wonky and unhappy but after 2 weeks it establishes to the new conditions AND behaves completely differently. I was mindblown. Such a great lesson to learn!

Learn more about Ket Baker here, or go visit one of their locations at 377 Grubb Road, Wallington and 2/174A High St, Belmont 3216