GRANDMA’S era styled recipes producing home-baked goodies with the aid of more modern equipment is working well for Alston and Geraldine McKay since they re-invented themselves as farm bakers at Mullaley 10 years ago.
When at Walcha, their McKays Bakery was known as the “lamington capital of the world”, however, these days those coconut on chocolate coated sponge cake portions are seldom on the baking menu, but home-made cakes, biscuits, rolls and slices are keenly sought after by customers attending country town and farmers market days.
Fruit is mostly home-grown in the McKay’s small orchard of some 60 trees of stone, pome and citrus together with grapevines and vegetable gardens within their 43 hectare “San Peter” property on the eastern edge of Mullaley village on the Oxley highway.
The couple came from the Killabakh and Cedar Party dairying districts of the Manning River valley, Alston from a Jersey herd operation and Geraldine (Richardson) from a Friesian/Jersey herd between Wingham and Comboyne where they married in 1978.
The McKays bred Quarter Horses, which in later years would become a business that “kept them sane”, according to Geraldine, after they sold the coastal property and bought the bakery at Walcha in 1982.
It was at that time the big bakers, Tip Top and Buttercup, moved into industrialised bread making, so the McKays concentrated on pies, cakes, pastries and lamingtons.
Their specialised baking supplied shops, (New England) university and private school canteens and kitchens in Walcha, Uralla and Armidale for 20 years.
“We even gained a silver medal for our pies in the Great Aussie Pie competition during the mid-1980s,” Geraldine said.
During these years they purchased “The Pines” at Walcha where their Quarter Horses ran, one being Docs Kylie Ann, one of the highest point-earning Quarter Horses of all times, Geraldine said.
This filly and later mare by Docs Yakoon, won 19 state and national titles in Queensland, NSW and Victoria in just one year.
“We worked in the bakery 24/7 but would head off to shows over weekends, some years travelling up to 80,000 kilometres to shows and events,” Alston said.
“We bred horses that although bred for cutting, could campdraft and also excel in sporting, pleasure riding and even had a fair bit of speed about them as well.”
Horses were their “break” from the business until they sold the bakery in 2001 and moved to Hanging Rock.
“Right in time for the big drought,” Geraldine said.
“At the time we were physically worn out and the 1500 millimetre rainfall dropped to 450 in the first year.”
The couple began bottling jams and preserves from produce on the farm, but weren’t sure what they’d do with it all.
A friend suggested they sell at Farmers Markets, but in ignorance, Geraldine asked, “What’s that?”
“Farmers markets were only just starting at the time and they were a very ‘trendy’ thing,” she said.
However, Tamworth had a “little” market in the car park of a local liquor shop, so they set up a stall and went home with some money.
For the next five years the McKays bottled and baked and attended markets at Tamworth, Quirindi, Gunnedah and later Coonabarabran, Narrabri and Moree.
“In that time we increased our variety of product, but travelling was getting to us,” Geraldine said.
“One day Alston was looking at a map and pin-pointed an area where he said we’d be more central to the markets we were attending.”
So it wasn’t long after they purchased “San Peter” at Christmas/New Year 2006 and set to on planting an orchard and vegetable gardens to make up their near, full-time home-baking business for market sales and set up their new home.
Baking has become a calculated production for the couple’s McKay Farm Baked Cakes home business.
They bake upwards of 60 to 80 kilograms of cake and biscuit mix at a time in a redesigned rumpus room converted to stainless steel benches, rolling racks and a gas fired fan-forced oven.
They start weighing and measuring in the early afternoon the day before a market.
“I go through my production sheets from each bake I’ve kept from the past six years to decide on variety and quantity of what to bake,” Geraldine said.
Cooler weather and winter seem to be the best times for sales as Geraldine reckons summer and heat don’t mix with people wanting to eat cakes and other tasty treats.
After calculations they start weighing off ingredients and mix the biscuits.
“That gives the biscuit mix time to stand,” Geraldine said.
“I weigh into 10 litre buckets and the first variety I mix will be the last I weigh off.”
At this stage they have dinner and then get back to work.
Mrs McKay then starts cracking the eggs and begins mixing in a 20lt and a 30lt mix.
From there trays are filled and baking begins.
“We continue right through the night, baking, cooling, cutting, packaging and loading into our refrigerated trucks, then have a shower and get driving to the market,” she said.
Fruit of dozens of varieties is mostly grown in the orchard.
Bananas for banana cake and bread are sourced from Coffs Harbour while anything the McKays don’t or can’t grow, particularly during the past few months’ heat, are purchased from other farmers.
They buy locally produced flour by the pallet, also bottles for jams and preserves.
Market stalls were originally a couple of tables and a small gazebo, but now the McKays Farm Baked stall is made of up to seven gazebos offering plenty of shade for customers, and the widest variety of their homemade wares.
“We don’t use artificial flavours as all ingredients are the real thing, even vanilla, lemon and oranges, our own grown sultanas, basically the lot,” Geraldine said.