Professionals Tamborine Mountain 
Tamborine Mountain Bakery needs no introduction. A mountain staple, its delicious goods have stood the test of time and satiated our residents faithfully for 30 years. Owner Leo Hoitink has many stories to tell about this pillar of the community, as well as a few trade secrets to share.
by Kyle Hitchmough
How did you originally come to open the bakery?
I came here for a holiday. I’m from Canberra originally, I owned bakeries there. I went for a walk and I saw this bakery. It wasn’t so much the bakery as the mountain and its surroundings, the whole ambiance. I said to my wife “I wouldn’t mind living here!” I approached the gentleman who owned a bakery here and I made him an offer. Two weeks later, he rang me and accepted. I gave the bakery that I had to my sons and moved up here. It was supposed to be a trial for the first year but we’re still here!
You make everything yourself in-house? Is there any kind of special process you use?
All our bread is made with my recipe. There are no preservatives in any of my products. Everything is fresh every day apart from maybe the caramel slices and fruit cakes, you can’t even sell that fresh. Anything you want which is made in this bakery, you have to buy at this bakery.
You have a particular specialty in your rye bread, correct?
Yes. We have rye bread, dark rye, light rye, rye and grain, rye and walnut, dark rye and walnut… It’s a specialty for us, and it’s very popular, especially on the weekend. We make lots of different sorts of bread. We make pumpkin bread. We make what they call a fruit loaf, which is purely fruit, no sugar. It’s very nice.
Are there any particularly popular items you sell?
Our patisserie line is very popular. We make beautiful strudels, beautiful cherry almond tarts, vanilla slices, custard tarts, apple pies, eclairs, neenish tarts, croissants… we have a much wider range of patisseries than the average bakery. Everything is made on the premises, nothing is brought in. Our pies and breads are top sellers. We have a wide range of pies.
Do you have any ‘trade secrets’ that make your bakery stand apart from others?
My fruit cake is very nice, it’s a 60-year-old recipe which I brought with me from Canberra. That’s very popular. And our carrot cakes. On the weekend, I make what they call Dutch donuts, which are called oliebollen and they are very popular. They’re unique. You can only get them here.
Do you have any personal favourite products?
I love the apple pies and apple strudel and I enjoy a cake! I’ll make a chocolate cake or a fruit cake and take that home, have that with a cup of tea. We also make lovely sandwiches and salad rolls which are very nice and very wholesome.
What goes into an average day’s work for you here?
It’s a very big load. We have to start at midnight, and we start off with a bag of sugar, a bag of flour and a box of eggs. By 9:00 the shop is full. By 6:00, you buy a loaf of bread, a bread roll, a croissant, it’s made that night. It’s hard work, and it’s very difficult to get staff. I’ve been short for over a year. I came close to closing up altogether, and then I scored a baker who’s very good. It’s three of us, all the time. It’s very labour-intensive, this game.
Are there any notable trends in your clientele?
I notice that over the years the clientele has shifted from just locals, we also get a lot of people now from down south. They all seem to be very impressed with my bakery. I do get a lot of tourists and we’ve been recommended to them because somebody they know has been to Mount Tamborine before, and apart from the fact they were impressed with the mountain, they all come to the bakery. The first thing they say is “If you go to Mount Tamborine, go to the bakery.”
As a local, what’s your opinion on the Tamborine Mountain area and community?
I’m very happy with it! Nice people. The mountain has a good influence on people. It relaxes them, makes them a bit nicer, the country. It’s so much more relaxing, people are friendly, because people are not pushed. We don’t have any stoplights.
Is there anything you personally like to do on the mountain?
I love the mountain. I love my garden. I go for walks. There’s nothing about the mountain that I don’t like. I go to all the nature parks with my kids and my visitors. And the mountain does do a lot of things too, like this week is the Artisan Fayre. Once a month we have the markets. We have lots of things going on. There’s more happening here than there ever was in Canberra.
What do you think the Tamborine Mountain Bakery really provides to the area?
I think it is a meeting place for the community. Everybody eats bread and everybody loves a nice cake! Everybody comes here when there’s a birthday party. So it is also a meeting place, lots of people come after the football to talk about the football, all the things that happen on the mountain we get to hear about in here first thing in the morning!
What do you enjoy most about doing this?
I’ve been doing it for over 50 years, and I do enjoy it. It’s creative, and it makes people happy. They reward me with kindness and good manners and always say “that was nice, thank you.” The public is very appreciative, and that I enjoy.
Do you have any standout stories or memorable moments from your time working here?
Over the years, when we’ve had power failures and that, when we first came here this place was wood-fired. When you couldn’t get anything on the mountain, you could come to the bakery and get a loaf of bread because I had a wood-fired oven. And I had a gas ring, I would put it on and boil water for people to help them out.
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