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Parap Fine Foods
MANY hidden treasures lie in the nooks and shelves of Parap Fine Foods, and Pavlina Pastrikos’ sweets are no exception. Ms Pastrikos is an employee of the deli and for the last two years have been dishing up sweets to sell in store.
For her, baking was just a hobby in her spare time but now she’s managed to make it into part of her everyday job.
She whips up a range of baked goods including Dutch apple pie, biscuits, fudge and Ekmek Kadayifi.
“It was a hobby at home and when I started working here about three years ago I slowly started working towards cooking more. Paula,
my boss, started encouraging it,” she said.
“It’s the best, it was a little hobby of mine but now they have made it into the only thing I love doing.”
She said over the two years she grown a steady customer base who often purchased whole trays of sweets for events.
The ekmek is one of her newer creations and is a layered dessert with pastry and cream. The recipe, she said, was sourced from a chef in Athens.
“It’s a shredded pastry and you put syrup through it, so it’s a very sweet Greek traditional dessert,” she said.
“It’s kind of Greek, Turkish, and then there’s a vanilla bean custard and then a fresh cream vanilla mix on top with pistachio on top of that.”
One of her original desserts is the Dutch Apple Pie, which she says was adapted from a recipe online.
“That’s the most popular one so far,” she said.
Ms Pastrikos also caters to those who like healthier treats and makes up a healthy rocky road.
She also makes the chocolate treat for those who like a bit of sugar and sells it on top of the deli counter.