Numurkah bakery is the little local favourite on the main drag of quaint country town numurkah that blew everyone out of the water when their hot cross buns – the first batch of the season no less – was crowned australia’s best.

Leeanne Stewart and her husband Trevor are the proud owners of the Baking Association of Australia’s hotly contested prize: the Australia’s Best Hot Cross Bun Competition trophy.

Leeanne attributes the win to using the right amount of spice, quality Australian fruit and having a talented baker – in this case, her husband – in the mix.

“I do think having Australian fruit set them apart; it’s so much better. You can’t beat Australian fruit. And you’ve got to have the right amount of spice, that’s always tricky.”

“We hadn’t started on the hot cross buns yet but the competition came up and we baked the first batch in the early hours of that morning, picked the best six and I ran them down to the competition and they were the ones that won,” Leeanne laughed.

The media lauded the win as a great achievement for underdogs everywhere. But credit must be given where credit is due. This country bakery is a second-generation business where Trevor has worked for some 35 yearsafter taking over from his parents around eight years ago. Add Leanne’s 20 years of service, and you’ve got adedicated team.

The bakery has seen a significant transformation over the years. Trevor’s parents originally bought the small store that is the bakery today, built it up and then expanded when the shop next door sold. Via a hole in the wall, that shop is the coffee shop side of Numurkah Bakery today – Tiffany’s coffee shop.

“It’s a heritage-listed building so it’s a pretty old-style building and the same inside. We’ve got a big space with a bakery and a coffee shop, and the coffee shop has the old wooden floors. So it has a lovely atmosphere.”

The husband and wife duo have a real passion for what they do: baking fresh bread seven days a week including white, wholemeal, multigrain, rolls, sticks and specialty breads once a week such as sourdough, spelt bread and viennas. Every day they make their best sellers: vanilla slice and jelly slice (lemon flavour), as well as traditional pastries, pies, yoyos, biscuits, hedgehog slices and more.

Leeanne says these bakery staples are an integral part of their business, with competition with big grocery stores their biggest challenge.

“It’s very, very hard to stay on track with bread as the supermarkets are offering cheap bread all the time,” Leanne says.

“It would be a shame if bakeries ever died out because it’s just so much healthier. You’ve got no preservatives and it’s just like the old bread they made years ago – you know, how mothers made bread in their kitchens.”

After winning the Australia’s best hot cross bun competition, business picked up, particularly around the Easter period for Numurkah bakery and they received a lot of great feedback from their customers, according to Leeanne.

“I’d like to see us moving forward now and I’d like to try and build our bakery up more. That’s my goal,” she says.

They’re off to a good start.