2023 is well and truly upon us, and there is no stopping the Maldon Market.

Our wonderful stall holders keep on coming, no matter the weather or time of year. Hail, rain or shine, month in and month out, on the second Sunday of every month, Maldon Market brings it on!

A regular stall is our much loved sourdough bread-making specialists, ‘Bread Builders’. Ken and Amy have worked tirelessly to bring us their organic artisan bread for the past 10 years, never missing a market that we can recall.

Ken Hercott became interested in bread and baking at an early age, growing up on an organic wheat farm in the Loddon Mallee region. He taught himself to bake using wheat milled on the family farm and sold his first loaf of bread to neighbours in the nearest town, Swan Hill, aged 19. 

In 1993, aged 23, Ken did an informal apprenticeship in the USA, under master baker Richard Bourdon of Berkshire Mountain Bakery. This raised Ken’s baking skills to a professional level and cemented his commitment to making quality ‘naturally leavened’ bread. Next came 10 years of baking and honing his wood oven skills in Melbourne. Then to Europe with his family in tow, where Ken embarked on a Parisian bakery crawl and helped with the re-emergence of ‘real bread’ in Britain. He lived, baked and taught on Barbialla, an organic farm in Tuscany, for two years. Ken’s love of the leaven has taken him around the planet. He and Amy settled in Maldon in 2011 and found that the town did not have any naturally leavened bread. 

Making quality Sourdough bread requires an understanding of the science of a natural living yeast (starter/leaven) which is used to rise/prove the bread before baking. “Keeping a healthy, happy starter makes for a good loaf of bread,” says Ken, who bakes bread once a month for our local Maldon Market. Ken and Amy have been baking as ‘Bread Builders’ for the Maldon market since 2013. They do a fantastic job, and not only do they use Victorian organic flours, but Maldon Market is the only place you can get a loaf of Ken’s French-styled sourdough bread.

Also available at the market is fresh seasonal produce with stone fruits from ‘Jim and Jen’ and garden vegetables from ‘Sandors’ Harvest’. It’s a real treat having these stall holders support our market and our town with fresh produce. 

This month’s community group is the Maldon Golf Club; please give generously at the gate donations and grab one or two of our local Biodynamic Brad’s sausages at the BBQ.  

Come along and enjoy the local music (members of the ‘Darling Buds of Maldon’), the food, the fun and the artisan’s fare of Maldon’s Market. There really is something for everyone.

This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 10 February 2023.