Bakery serves up award winning pies

The Cobar Hot Bake has won a silver medal and four bronze medals at the 2025 National Great Aussie Pie Competition. Pictured are staff members Perrine Enjolras, Jonathan Guillemot, Belén Pereira and Federico Valdés with some of their award winning pies.

Cobar Hot Bake’s Steak Diane meat pie has won a silver medal in this year’s Great Aussie Meat Pie Competition.

Their Steak Diane was second best in Australia in the Gourmet Pie category.

The local bakery also won four bronze medals for their Plain Mince Pie, their Chunky Steak Pie, their Curry Steak Pie and their Beef Brisket Pie.

Cobar Hot Bake’s owner and baker, Justin Van der Stratten was thrilled with the results.

“Beef Brisket is our newest pie, we have only been making it a few weeks.

“We were very excited to come away with such great results given the standard of the competition was so high,” Justin told The Cobar Weekly.

The Official Great Aussie Meat Pie Competition was established in 1989 with the aim of raising the quality standards of pies throughout Australia.

For more than 30 years the competition has built pride among bakers, chefs, and even butchers, and established passion in the art of pie-making while forming an industry benchmark for excellence.

Entries for this year’s competition came from all around the country with the Paradise Bakehouse in Bundaberg, Queensland, taking out gold for their Plain Pie while the Mt Barker Country Bakery in Western Australia claimed the Gourmet Pie gold medal for their Beef Bourguignon Pie.

“We were lucky enough to be able to attend on the last day of the competition and see some of the pies that won the gold and, let’s just say, we are very motivated so watch this space for some new exciting flavours coming soon!” Justin said.

Justin said one of his secrets for success is using the best ingredients.

“James Degn at J&K Butchery is amazing and goes above and beyond for us and we simply would not have been so successful without him.”

Justin and the team now have their sights on next year’s competition.

“Hopefully next year we can come away with a gold!”