Baking bread is an art, according to a long-time Nowra Baker who recently won multiple awards for his bread.
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John Reminis is the owner of Nowra's 'Bakehouse Delights' and has been baking bread since he was 10 years old.
Now in his 70's, Mr Reminis and his son have mastered the art of baking, bringing home countless awards for their baked goods at the recent Wollongong Baking Show 2022.
The award show would usually run annually, however due to COVID-19, the competition was forced to take a two year break.
The show returned in 2022, with bakers from the Shoalhaven and Illawarra fighting to see who had the best bread.
Mr Reminis was hard to beat however, with his sourdough, baguettes, sausages rolls and other baked goods cooking up awards left, right and center.
Bakehouse Delights even took home the '2022 Best Exhibitor Award'.
Mr Reminis said there is an art to baking and cooking with passion is vitally important.
"A lot of it comes from the heart," he said.
"Lot's of people try to get fancy with their baking and cooking, but if you're passionate, stick to the simple recipes passed down generation to generation, you can taste the difference."
The Nowra store which was established in the early 2000's, has been attending the award show for years, with Mr Reminis's first shot at competing with his bread being in 1986.
While Mr Reminis's was growing his baking skills, so was his store and eventually, the team had to open two more - both in Nowra and surrounds.
The classic crusty baguette was one of the winners at the competition, with Mr Reminis stating they are one of his best sellers.
"You can't go wrong with a baguette," he said.
"People love them and I've even had people who have been to France come and say to me that they prefer our ones over the ones in France.
"It's a nice thing to hear, really makes you feel good."
Mr Reminis said he believed it's important to teach the younger generation the way of baking he was taught at a young age.
Charlie is one of the young baker's in the store who is learning how to bake bread the way Mr Reminis has done for decades.
"I love it," Charlie said.
Mr Reminis stressed on the importance of teaching the younger generation.
"It's so important to keep these cooking techniques alive," he said.
"I'm not going to be doing this forever, but this is a generational way of cooking, so keeping it alive and well is very important to me."
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Traditional bread is sold at the bakery, ranging from white bread, multigrain, sourdough, baguettes and more. However, the store also sells more extravagant flavours, such as jalapeno and cheese and cranberry.
Mr Reminis said it was hard to determine which bread he personally liked the most.
"Sourdough is a safe bet, there is so much you can do with it," he said.
"Cranberry bread is also really good because it's so sweet."
However, it's not just bread Mr Reminis has perfected over his many years of baking, the store also pride themselves on their simple, yet delicious pastries and deserts.
'Simple' is the key word according to Mr Reminis, as he said he sees many bakeries attempt to do over the top extravagant pastries which more often than not, end up being too much.
"It's important to keep it simple because I think it just taste that much better," he said.
"There's something about these other bakeries where they put too much time into all these crazy ingredients and trying to make the baked good look special that it impacts the final taste of the product."
Nowra's Bakehouse Delights will be returning to next year's Wollongong Baking Show where they hope to bring home as many, if not more awards than they did in 2022.