Times may change, but love for pies never falters

The Dough Puncher’s jam-packed Brekky Pie flies out of the door at $6 a pop, surely proving that for many Kiwis, there’s not much in life that can’t be improved by wrapping it in pastry and serving it hot with a coffee.

The “full breakfast” is just one of more than 30 different fillings that the bakery in Omaha Flats Road near Matakana produces, from old favourites like mince or steak and cheese up to gourmet delights like scallop mornay, steak and oyster or pork and watercress, with tradies knocking on their door from 5am.

Pie maestro David Roberts says he’s always coming up with new ideas and tries to delete any slower-selling lines, but customers all have their favourites and complain if there’s anything missing from the pie warmer.

“We have a couple of new pies – chicken, spinach and brie and roast beef, gravy and mashed potato – and this winter I’ll probably do a brisket and silverbeet,” he says.

At least 300 pies are sold by the Dough Puncher every day, and it’s a similar story at the Roberts’ former bakery, Savans in Warkworth, now run by Bros Ly. He makes 21 different varieties of pies, all from scratch with hand-made pastry, and his pies have been placed in the top 10 of the New Zealand National Pie Championships for the past five years.

The most popular flavour at Savans is not the usual mince or steak, but chicken, feta and spinach. Other less traditional favourites are pork and apple, lamb and mint, smoked fish and a scallop savoury. Bros also makes a popular vegetarian pie – still something of a rarity in many bakeries – filled with sun-dried tomato, spinach, feta, mushroom and olive.

“In summer we make more than double than in winter. A lot of tourists come through and love our pies.”

The dreaded summer traffic jams can even help to sell pies – Lee Seak at Wellsford’s Champion Bakery says when the State Highway 1 holiday traffic is crawling past his shop, people often jump out of their car, come in, buy a pie and then rejoin their vehicle a bit further along the road.

“Business is really good so far, it’s been quite busy this summer, with heaps of people going through,” he says. “We won a Gold Medal for our Mince & Gravy in 2013 and that really helped business.”

At present, Lee sells 12 different varieties of pies.

Traditional fillings are still the most popular at Real Town Pies in Maungaturoto, too – unless you visit the town’s Christmas Parade. That’s when owner Corina Cumming holds an annual pie-eating contest, and one of the three pies that have to be eaten is guaranteed to be unusual to say the least.

“People have to eat three pies in the shortest time, two normal and one special one – last year, it was Vegemite and chips, the year before Weetbix and peanut butter. They needed a lot of water with that one,” she says.

Corina makes about 1000 pies a week with 10 different varieties, and she’s had two of her pies in the Top 10 of the NZ Pie Championships – her creamy chicken and a special filet mignon. Fans of her baking are prepared to travel to buy her pies, too – she has customers from Auckland, Dargaville and Police officers from Whangarei, including one who orders 24 at a time then puts them in his freezer.