Baking January 2019

HAND
PICKED
Naeem and Robert in
the shop together
Few bakeries have stood the test of
time as dutifully as La Torre Cake Shop.
It first opened in 1974 as a bread shop
that mostly sold dried and frozen pasta,
until the owners moved their operation
to larger premises in 1982. They sold La
Torre to Robert and Grace Lagrange, who
had settled in Australia after leaving their
native Argentina.
Robert was an electrical engineer by
trade but, at the time, his English wasn’t
good enough for him to continue his
vocation in Australia.
Robert’s grandfather had owned a
bakery in Argentina, so when he and
Grace took over La Torre, they began
making cakes and pastries from scratch.
Soon, specialty cakes became their core
business, and Robert began adding
traditional South American favourites to
the store’s display cases.
“In those years, the quality of the product
DULCE DE LECHE IS THE SAME TO US IN ARGENTINA
AS VEGEMITE IS IN AUSTRALIA... IT'S TRADITION.
available in the industry was nowhere near
what it was today,” Robert says.
“We learned a lot along the way and
over the years I have done patisserie and
chocolate course with Kirsten Tibballs from
Savour Chocolate & Patisserie School.”
Dulce de leche-filled pastries are key to La
Torre’s offering, with Robert hand-making
the traditional filling from scratch—not with
condensed milk, but by laboriously handwhisking
milk and sugar until it becomes a
thick, rich caramel. It’s a process that takes
many hours, but the results absolutely are
well worth the effort.
“Dulce de leche is the same to us in
Argentina as Vegemite is in Australia,”
Robert explains. “It’s tradition; we’ve grown
up with it. People love it, and we sell it by
the kilo, all handmade here in the shop.”
This sweet caramel is found in many of
the pastries in La Torre, including the very
popular alfajores (buttery shortbread
sandwiches) and mil hojas (a type of
Argentinian mille-feuille). As the community
of Fairfield grew to include Greeks, Italians
and Lebanese, Robert and Grace expanded
their product range to include Europeanstyle
pastries as well, making cannolis and
croissants with divine dulce de leche filling.
16 BAKING BUSINESS