Playing With Fire

Cherry Moon’s Kimmy Gastmeier shares her passion for wood-fired ovens and how it influences her baking

- Tristan Lutze

Every morning, cakes, scones, focaccias, cinnamon scrolls and a range of obsession-inducing loaves (including the bakery’s signature fig leaf-adorned sourdough) await purchase at Cherry Moon General Store, still warm from the brick wood-fired oven at the rear of the store.

The hearth at the heart of the popular Sydney bakery, tucked away in a back street of Annandale in the city’s inner-west, is the manifestation of owner and head baker Kimmy Gastmeier’s professional and personal journey, along with centuries of wood-fired knowledge spanning cultures and continents.

“It’s an Alan Scott oven,” says Gastmeier, referring to the caravansized installation she commissioned for the bakery; previously a De Bortoli wine cellar. “He was a blacksmith from Tasmania who was angry that centuries of wood-fired culture was being forgotten.”

Scott, who died in 2009, researched traditional wood-fired ovens around the world, including ancient Roman and African varieties, before devising his own model that maximised heat retention and equalisation. Having been unable to find a property with a suitable existing oven, Gastmeier contacted Brisbane-based Dennis Benson, who had first-hand experience building ovens with Scott, and set about convincing him to build hers.