Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I’m often asked where I buy the items mentioned on our blog, so I thought I’d write all my suppliers up in a single post for easy reference.  I’ll make sure to update this page regularly, and I’ll link it to all the relevant tabs above, so it will always be accessible.  Like us, many of our suppliers are based in Sydney, Australia (some will ship across the country), but there are a couple of interstate and international ones as well.

Disclaimer: I have no business affiliation or monetary connection with any of the companies listed below!

CHOCOLATE SUPPLIES

Callebaut Chocolate (bulk)

• Chefs’ Warehouse in Surry Hills – apart from having the nicest staff, they’re also very reasonably priced.  They stock the cheaper Sicao range as well.

• Southern Cross Supplies in Marrickville have a wide range of bulk chocolate on offer.

Chocolate Moulds

• Candyland Crafts – I mail order almost all my moulds from this company in the US.  Shipping is quite expensive, but each mould is only $1.99, and they have a huge range.  They don’t last forever, but they’re more than adequate for home use. I also buy lollipop sticks from them.

• Roberts Confectionary – this Melbourne based company has a nice selection, although shipping can be a little expensive at $12.95.

• Chefs’ Warehouse have a nice range of really expensive professional hard moulds, if anyone needs something more serious.

Heat Mats

• My friend Christina has had great success using a wrapped wheat pack to keep her tempered chocolate at the right temperature, but I rely on these reusable heat packs from Shin Bio.

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BREADMAKING SUPPLIES

Flour

• My preferred flour comes from my friend Kevin Sherrie’s mill (FPM Milling) in Tamworth, but unfortunately I’m no longer able to buy that in Sydney.  If you’re in Tamworth, you can buy bags directly from the mill.

• Ben Furney Flour Mills in Dubbo make an excellent bakers’/bread flour, and it’s available in Sydney from Southern Cross Supplies (Marrickville) and Food on the Move (Hornsby).

• Manildra Mills produce a very good bakers’/bread flour, as well as a wide range of other flours – pizza, ultra white, self-raising, plain and more.  Almost all of these are available for retail sale at Harkola in Auburn.

• As a benchmark, expect to pay less than $1/kg for bread/bakers’ flour when you buy it in bulk – usually a 12.5kg or 25kg sack.

• Italian flours (remilled semolina and 00 flours) are available at most good Italian delicatessens, as well as in Haberfield at Lamonica’s IGA, Lamonica’s Fruit Barn and Zanetti Five Star.

• Grains, seeds, malt powder, dried fruit and other add-ins can also be found at Harkola in Auburn.

Bannetons and other tools

• Chefs’ Warehouse in Surry Hills have assorted cane bannetons available at very reasonable prices – under $20 each for one kilogram sized and smaller.  I took some photos of mine here.

• Graeme at sourdough.com has oval bannetons available, as well as lames and razor blades.

• In the UK, Bakery Bits offers bannetons in a wide range of shapes and sizes, as well as an assortment of other breadmaking paraphernalia (check out their cool Danish dough whisks!).

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COOKWARE

I buy most of my cookware from one of three online Sydney-based stores:

• Peter of Kensington – by far the cheapest on most items (including the Emile Henry Flame Top and Römertopf ranges).  They ship all over Australia and I definitely find it easier to order online than to actually go into their physical store.

• Everten Online have a wide range of cookware available at very reasonable prices.  They have the lowest prices I’ve found on Chicago Metallic bakeware.

• Victoria’s Basement has outlets all over Sydney now, as well as their online store.  Some great prices on Emile Henry cookware there as well.

If you’re looking for an unusual piece of kit – rosetta stamps, infra-red thermometers, mini ice cream scoops and the like – it’s always worth giving Chefs’ Warehouse a call, as they’ll probably have it in stock!

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FRESH PRODUCE

Butchers

• Haverick Meats – fabulous wholesalers, only open on Saturdays.

• Flemington Market Butchers – wholesalers of Greenham’s beef, with great specials to be had at the Friday and Saturday Paddy’s Markets.

• Gojak Meats, Haberfield – Dave and Mateja Gojak operate a very special suburban butcher store, stocking free range chicken, free range pork and a wide range of handmade meat products.  Their bacon is the best we’ve ever tried, and their chicken schnitzel is the closest we get to fast food. Both are made from free range meat.

Cheese/Deli Products

• Paesanella Cheese Shop, Haberfield – the only place I go for Italian cheeses, San Danielle prosciutto, Spanish rice and antipasto.  I love these guys.  It’s worth remembering that there are often free ham bones on offer in the shop (just ask!).

• Peppe’s Pasta, run by my friend Joe Cassiniti, makes magnificent egg pasta.  This award winning range comes in a wide assortment of shapes, flavours and fillings, and we always keep a packet or two of their tortellini in the freezer for emergency dinners.

Fish

• The Sydney Fish Market is touristy, expensive and a great source for fabulous seafood.  There is a dedicated oyster shop at the top of the carpark, who stock the best oysters we’ve ever tasted.

• Faros Brothers in Marrickville is an amazing place to find fantastic quality fish at very reasonable prices.  They have an enormous range and great specials, but make sure you wear waterproof shoes (I always seem to go in suede boots!).

Fruit and Vegetables

• We grow quite a lot of our eating greens now, and wherever possible, we try to buy everything else from Flemington Markets (Paddy’s Markets).  They’re open Friday, Saturday and Sunday – opening hours are listed here.  Saturday mornings can be insane, but Fridays and very early Sunday mornings are quite civilized.  Almost all the fruit and veg we buy at the markets will be a week or two fresher than what is normally available in the supermarkets.

• We buy all our dried fruit and nuts from either Harkola in Auburn or Southern Cross Supplies in Marrickville.

Frozen Berries

• Frozen berries can be prohibitively expensive in the supermarkets, but quite reasonably priced at Chef Express in Marrickville and Manly Freezers.

Spices

• Herbie’s Spices in Rozelle is a wonderful shopping experience.  They have an enormous selection of dried spices, all sealed in thick plastic bags.  There is also a wide range of fabulous spice mixes – we use the Chermoula, Italian herbs and Mexican spice mix all the time.

• We buy all our Indian spices at the Aum Spice Centre in Croydon, Sydney, and have been doing so for years.  Nathan also offers fresh roti, a huge range of Basmati rice and a great selection of frozen Indian produce.

Jam Making Supplies

• We now buy all our glass jars and bottles in bulk from Plasdene Australia.  They have branches all around Australia, but they do require a minimum purchase for over the counter sales (and an even larger one for deliveries).   We have also purchased from Cospak in the past – again, there are minimum order quantities before they will deliver.

• We buy almost all our fruit for preserving from Flemington Markets.

Miscellaneous

• Chefs’ Warehouse stocks very reasonably priced cooking alcohol, bulk Maldon salt, titanium gelatine leaves, fancy fondant in a tub, the best and cheapest wine vinegars we’ve ever seen, dried mushrooms, ridiculously cheap bulk vanilla beans and an assortment of other foodie treasures.

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GARDEN SUPPLIES

• Enfield Produce – this lovely, down to earth store stocks seeds, chook food, chooks, manure, compost, plants and most of the other things we need for our vegetable garden.  They also have rabbits, mice, songbirds, lime trees and bales of lucerne hay.

• The Italian Gardener – we buy a lot of our seeds from this company, and they’ve proven to be reliable germinators.  They have a great range, including some heirloom varieties.

• New Gippsland Seeds – this Victorian company has been in operation for nearly ninety years, and offer a wide variety of unusual and difficult to source seeds.

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CONVERTING TO METRIC

Conversion tables published on the internet are often variable, so I thought I’d list (for my own reference) the quantities that I use for baking.  These are the weights I’ve come up with through trial and error and I’ve found they work well with our local ingredients.

• 1 cup flour (plain/AP, self-raising, bread) = 150g
• 1 cup or 2 US sticks of butter = 250g
• 1 cup white or caster (superfine) sugar = 220g
• 1 cup packed brown sugar = 210g
• 1 cup Dutch-process cocoa = 110g
• 1 cup natural cocoa = 100g
• 1 cup icing sugar mixture (confectioner’s sugar) = 125g
• 1 cup almond meal = 125g
• 1 cup water (250ml) = 250g
• 1 cup oil (250ml) = 225g
• 1 US/UK tablespoon (15ml) = 3 teaspoons
• 1 Aus tablespoon (20ml) = 4 teaspoons
• 1 US tablespoon of butter = 15g
• 1 cup cornflour (cornstarch) = 135g
• 1 oz = 30g
• 1 large egg = 59g
• 1 teaspoon baking powder = 5g

Most American recipes (and some older Australian ones) list their ingredients by cup measure. Before I bake such a recipe, I will mark it up with the equivalent metric quantities, and then proceed to measure out using a set of digital scales.  My cookbooks are all scribbled in, and I keep a flour-encrusted calculator on my kitchen bench specifically for this purpose!