LOCAL FOOD
sweet life PREGNANCY CRAVINGS PUSHED KAYLEE HEAD TO START THE DONUT PANTRY If you’ve spied a Donut Pantry Nutella, jam or custard bomb showered in cinnamon, sitting pretty on your local cafe countertop, do yourself a favour – try one! But be warned: stopping at one is tricky.
Owned and operated by Bulli mum-of-two Kaylee Head, The Donut Pantry produces tempting treats that are addictive and loved by many. As well as stocking local cafes with weekly donut drops, the self-taught baker also sells themed boxes for special holidays (who needs Christmas cake, when Chrissie donuts are an option?!), takes wholesale orders, and caters for events like weddings, birthdays and baby showers – making individual donuts as party favours or setting up impressive donut walls and dessert tables. As Kaylee says, her donuts “are not for the faint of heart”. With flavours including cookies and cream and Turkish delight, adorned with the likes of peanut butter cups, biscotti and fairy floss, The Donut Pantry is all about bold, colourful donuts – big on flavour; big on wow factor! Since opening The Donut Pantry in 2017, Kaylee has been riding the sugar high…
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How did The Donut Pantry kick off? When I was pregnant with my second son, I had massive donut cravings, and while on the hunt to satisfy those cravings discovered that in Wollongong the best I could get was from the supermarket. It made me realise there was definitely a market. This spurred on months of research to learn how to make donuts, and how to make them taste amazing. I have no baking history whatsoever, so it was literally YouTube videos, finding different recipes, trying different recipes, perfecting different recipes... I’m really proud of the work I put into learning to make donuts. I came from an advertising background in Sydney, and when we moved back to the Illawarra to start a family there wasn’t the same kind of jobs available here, so I had to find something to do, and I liked the idea of working for myself. There are plenty of wonderful home bakers in the Illawarra making amazing cakes and desserts, so I went straight for donuts, and here we are…
