Photo credit: Limestone Coast Community News
A long-held dream has come to life in Mount Gambier, with the opening of Yummy Bunny, a new gluten-free bakery created by 16-year-old Janni Vanderheul.
For Janni, the bakery is the result of years spent baking for her family, including two siblings who live with coeliac disease. Although she does not have a gluten intolerance herself, she has grown up understanding how difficult it can be for gluten-free customers to find classic bakery treats they can enjoy with confidence.
As the self-proclaimed baker of the family, Janni wanted to create a place where people with dietary requirements could walk in and order the kind of pies, pastries, breads, scrolls and sweets that are often off-limits elsewhere.
The result is Yummy Bunny, a dedicated gluten-free bakery bringing fresh comfort classics to Mount Gambier, while giving Janni the chance to turn her childhood passion into a business of her own.
“Having so many people in the family with coeliac disease, I’ve adapted my baking to gluten-free flour and gluten-free-based things,” Janni said.
“Opening a bakery has always been my dream, because I’ve been baking since I was so young and it’s just a passion of mine.”
“When it came around to it, I thought, I do so much better with gluten-free foods because I’ve been baking with it for so long.”
There’s nothing like it in town or out of it, with Janni saying it’s the only gluten-free bakery from Mount Gambier to Adelaide and Mount Gambier through to Melbourne.
“There are no other major gluten-free bakeries on the way, so people have to drive five-plus hours to get a homemade loaf, and it’s just not very sound.”
On the morning of the bakery opening, there was one problem. They sold out too quickly.
By the following morning, locals were already lining up again, eager to try the bakery’s pies, pastries, breads and sweets before the cabinets were cleared for a second time.
It’s not just gluten-free eaters that are coming in either. Anyone and everyone is welcome.
“We’ve had lots of people try it and say, “Wow, this is the best scroll I’ve ever had,” because it’s made so it would be as fluffy as a regular one,” Janni said.
The bakery’s countertop is filled with gluten-free comfort classics, from slow-roasted beef pies, pasties and sausage rolls to cookies, cupcakes, breads and fluffy scrolls.
The Compton Street bakery has been months in the making, with Janni spending the lead-up to opening testing recipes, refining flour blends and building a menu designed specifically for gluten-free customers.
“We’ve been working on the blends for a very long time, because we have our own flour blends,” she said.
“We use a mix of corn starches, potato starches, tapioca starches, rice flours and buckwheat flours.”
These homemade flour mixtures are what make the baked goods higher quality, and more like something you’d find in traditional gluten-filled products.
One in 70 Australian have coeliac disease, according to Coeliac Australia and only 20 percent are diagnosed.
Yummy Bunny is creating a great place for locals and people living with coeliac to enjoy gluten free goods without sacrificing flavour.
Yummy Bunny
When: Weekends from 7am until 12pm or sold out
Where: 3/7 Compton Street, Mount Gambier
For more info, click here.
Editor’s note, May 10th: An earlier version of this article included wording derived from Limestone Coast Community News article, “Gluten-Free Bakery Opens Its Doors in Mount Gambier,” published on May 10th. This did not meet our editorial standards. We have reviewed the article and removed the affected wording. We apologise to Limestone Coast Community News, its journalist, and our readers.
