Paula Delapenna

Hi Paula. Lovely to meet you. Now, you're from Argentina. When did you come to Melbourne?

I have been here eight years, this week is my anniversary.

Happy anniversary! Let's start from the beginning. I know your family is quite a foodie family. You have some bakers and some chefs in your family?

My grandmother was a baker. She was mainly focussed on birthday cakes and she was also baking and cooking for the family. We have a strong Italian background, as you can tell from my last name. Also. food and cooking itself is very big in the family. My dad cooks a lot and that's what bonds us nowadays. We share recipes and he tells me about videos he has seen. It is very important.

I think in many cultures food brings people together and it does here as well, but in a slightly different way. I feel that for Mediterranean, Spanish and Italian families, everything centres around food.

Yes. If you are sad, you cook, if you are happy, you cook. Lunches last for four hours. Dinners, you have pre-dinner and dinners are very late so you stay up late. Food is a really big component. My background and the Argentinian background, the majority of the immigrants who came were from Spain and Italy, which are two cultures with a strong focus on food. I learned that, or became very aware of that when I moved to Australia, because I started meeting Spanish people and Italians and then I actually started seeing my own culture from afar.

I think that's really interesting and it's what Esca, who I spoke to last week, was saying about his home country, Borneo. He came to Australia when he was 15 and I guess a 15 year old takes their surroundings and their home for granted, and he learned more about his country when he was away from it. I think that's sometimes because you have the comparison of the new culture as well and then, as you say meeting the Spanish and Italian people.

I also did some teaching here so also having to explain or teach about cultures within South America. Argentina is not the same as Chile or Uruguay, so that was very interesting. Also from the food point of view. I love it.

Argentina is a large country.

It is. When I was teaching, I had to learn this; it is three times smaller than Australia.

But you have coastline.

Yes we have coastline and then we have the Andes and we share them with Chile.

Geography really affects food as well. You would have lots of seafood.

Yes, we have lots of seafood along the coastline and there are lots of beach town and lots of ports that do exports but that is usually where there is a lot of seafood. That is one of the traditions; you go over to one of these beach towns and you have to eat the seafood because it is super fresh. But then also we have different influences, for instance, in Patagonia in the south, there are large Welsh communities and some German people. And because their climate is much colder, you have this mix of dishes and last names. The architecture is also influenced. And then you go to the north, which is where the climate is warmer, you have Peru and Bolivia.

Which part are you from?

I am from the middle. It is called Buenos Aires province. My home town is a five hour drive from the capital. It is on the flatlands. You might have heard of Pampa?

What kind of food did you grow up eating?

A lot of pasta. My grandma used to make homemade pasta every Thursday for her and my grandpa. And that was the big plan of the week, going to eat pasta after school at her place. A lot of asado, which is our barbecue, which is cooked on coal or woodfire. It is delicious. We don't add a lot of sauces, maybe you have heard of chimichurri; I think that's the most sauce we would add. Basically that and then probably some Spanish influence as well; seafood. My dad fishes so he likes to cook fish and seafood. And sweets, always sweets, because of my grandmother.

What are some Argentinian sweets, or was your grandmother cooking Italian sweets?

When I started my blog, I started looking into some history of the desserts and some come from Italian background. I would say 80% of our sweets use dulce de leche, which people here call dolce, but it is not Italian. It is dulce, which means sweet and dulce de leche means milk jam. I dont particularly translate it because its not caramel. It looks like caramel, but the recipe, itself, is different.

Right, I always assumed it was caramel because of its flavour.

It is basically milk and sugar which gets boiled down or simmered at a very low temperature for three or four hours, stirring every so often. There is no butter, no cream. Sometimes people add bicarb soda which gives it that caramel colour. And then, obviously because it is such a big industry over there, you get flavours, so mint or orange dulce de leche. Then you have different types; so baking dulce de leche, which is thicker, so it holds its shape, so you can cut through it and it doesn't go runny. The traditional version is more liquidy and more towards the caramel, so we spread it on toast or ice cream.

My mother used to make a caramel sauce out of tinned condensed milk and have it on ice cream. That's my favourite combination: vanilla ice cream and hot caramel.

Oh my god, heaven. That's actually one way to do dulce de leche. My first trip overseas was to the US, back in the day not that long ago, but quite some years there was no Facebook or anything and I was living with a family and I wanted to bake and cook some traditional dishes for them and the way to make dulce de leche was by boiling condensed milk in a tin. That was the closest I could get to it because I couldn't buy it in the supermarket. Now it is a bit more spread around with globalisation.

What sort of birthday cakes was your grandmother making?

My grandma used to make, well, the most traditional and the most requested one was a vanilla cake with chocolate chips, but it was more towards a mud cake, because it is super moist and dense. It's not like a fluffy sponge cake. It is obviously filled with dulce de leche. There is no birthday cake without dulce de leche; that's what I always say. Or chocolate mud cake. Those were her iconic ones. Then she also made a few that I believe are Welsh recipes with fruit or prunes. It's very interesting to have all these mixes, right?

That's fascinating. And did you bake with her?

I did. I learned from her. She was a big decorator as well, with fondant cakes. I don't think she actually ever made butter cream cakes because they came along in the industry later on. Or at least they weren't a big thing in our home town. I remember going to her house and being in the kitchen and asking, ok, what cake are you doing now? Where are the decorations? And I would go to the back, she had a back kitchen where she saved all the decorations and I remember learning by watching and by standing next to her learning how to cover a cake with fondant. I don't do that now because I don't like it and it is very hard.

That's so lovely. Patisserie, or the pastry section of cooking is a lot harder, or at least a lot more precise than other cooking.

It is like a science.

You can't just throw in this and that.

Yes, it's not like a risotto, where you just add more onion, more mushrooms, no. I love that it is quite precise. I am a bit of a nerd, so I like learning why things work. I didn't study to do this, so I don't call myself a chef, but I learned by trying and reading and looking at other people who are already ahead in their journey and their career and see what they suggest. I also talk to my mum because she remembers things that my grandmother used to make. She says things like, grandma didn't do it this way, she did it that way.

When you came here, did you think you might do what you're doing now?

No, not at all. I came here with a working holiday visa and my idea was just to travel. Australia sounded so exotic and my idea of Australia was surfing, hot weather, surfers with blonde hair. Then I came to Melbourne and I was like, um, ok.

It's very cultural here! And great food.

I love that. And yes, there is great food. I started discovering all the Asian food. For me, Asian dishes were Chinese dishes, stir fry and sushi. Then I started discovering all these different ingredients or ways to mix ingredients, but I never pictured myself working in food. My aim was to get something in the translation field which is my background and what I was doing before I moved here.

And so the blog you started, was that a bit of a connection to home? What made you think about doing a blog?

I was always baking and then there was one year where I was feeling particularly homesick and so I started going through my recipe books. One belonged to the whole family, so I have recipes from my dad, my grandmother, my mum, my sister, my aunt and I have one that I am compiling myself and I started baking all these recipes and I always share them with friends via email or text message and then I thought maybe I could start sharing them in a more widespread way and get a little bit more reach. I started baking and baking, baking and then I discovered food photography because I wanted to do the recipes justice. The recipes were delicious but the photos weren't any good. I started learning food photography and that's when the blog started to grow. People liked the recipes.

Was it always called En Casa?

Yes because En Casa means 'at home' in Spanish and it made me feel at home; the smells were the same as in my mums kitchen.

Could you easily get the ingredients you needed?

Yes, the hardest one was dulce de leche which I had to cook with condensed milk and that took a lot of trials. I tried different brands here in Australia, but at the time for the blog I was trying to manage. In the blog, I gave different options because the blog is bilingual, in Spanish and in English, and I have a bit of a following in Argentina, so I would suggest different brands, depending on the recipe or budget or the flavour they wanted. But I also had to cater for people here or in the US or Europe. Then it is just flour, butter, eggs, just traditional baking.

How do you go from a blog to having a business?

I was baking a lot and taking everything I had after I had taken the photos to the office or to barbecues. Then one birthday, my friends sat me down and said Paula, you need to start selling these and reach more people. In a way it was all connected to my teaching and to the translation because then I could show that part of the culture to people here. It was not easily found, like alfajores or dulce de leche cakes. There are a lot of people who do them but Im not sure why I couldnt find them online or what so then I thought maybe there was a gap in the market. I started with a lot of research: how to be on the website, how to learn good photography, how to do social media and videos and even how to set up a business here in Australia.

I guess, too, and you mention this on your website that you have all the food safety aspects covered off too.

Exactly. I'm very self-taught, so I went to Google and asked how to do it and I called the council and asked what I needed to be able to do these recipes and cakes and I don't know if I was just lucky, but they were very lovely and helpful. They worked with me and helped me. They came to my house and told me what I could do. At the end, I was a little bit all over the place; I knew I wanted to share my recipes and product, but I wasn't sure what my place and role was in the industry here in Melbourne because there are so many amazing bakers and patisseries. I have slowly polished the branding and the message I want to convey and the sustainability aspect which took me a long time. All the packaging and wrappers, the stickers are either compostable, which is my first goal and if I can't find anything compostable that suits my business, I go biodegradable. It's a lot.

I was still working full time when I started and last year I made the jump to four days work ad three days and nights working for En Casa. In a way all the lockdowns were very hard, but they were my survival kit; they were how I survived mentally.

Do you make to order?

Usually I have some stock of alfajores, or alfies in Aussie slang. Except in summer, I don't stock chocolate alfajores because they melt very quickly. Cakes are made to order, except for markets. Last year when things started to open up, I started doing markets on the weekends. That was a really good way to be able to talk to people and bring single serve cakes that people could try instead of buying a whole cake.

Tell me about the alfajores.

They are like the Argentinian version of the Tim Tams. Some people say they are like melting moments. Basically, they are two biscuits, very crumbly biscuits of any flavour; either chocolate or lemon, walnut, they are my signature flavours. An alfajor is always filled with dulce de leche, the thick caramel sauce. Some are covered in chocolate, others in coconut or different decorations. It's a massive industry in Argentina.

So you buy them in packets like Tim Tams?

You buy them in packets in supermarkets and there are so many businesses. Argentina is known for having lots of economic crises and when people think they need a job or a second job or a little more income, one of the main ideas is alfajores. It's something very rooted to our culture. You can find them in so many shapes. Usually they are round, but you can find square ones or tiny bonbon shaped ones, little bites. Everyone I starting to innovate.

Apart from the alfies, what else do you do? Are your cakes like your grandmothers cakes?

Yes. Most of them are my grandmother's cakes but I try to give them a twist to make them fit in with Aussie flavour and style. My cakes are all very rustic looking. I don't do cute little decorations; that takes so long and then people dont eat them. In my case, I would rather focus on top quality ingredients, nice-looking cakes but rustic. Some of them are my grandmother's recipes and others I have been developing over the years. I get inspiration in life; I discover combinations of flavours in slices or macarons and I think about taking it into a cake.

So now in this nebulous time of Covid and lockdown/not lockdown, are you going to markets?

I'm going to start going to markets in March. I have one at the end of February. Hopefully it won't be too hot. That's why I stopped after Christmas and usually in January it is a bit slow. I take orders but I don't do markets. I'll start up again in February and March.

Which markets do you go to?

I'm a little bit all over the place so that people from other suburbs can find me. I go the Fitzroy Mills Market, Heide that's a really nice market. I have done some of the craft markets on the Mornington Peninsula, Emu Plains. In February I am going to one I have never been to before and I am very excited, Bourne Local, in Elwood, which looks very nice.

It'd be lovely for people to meet you and talk to you. You are so vivacious and passionate about what you do and there's an obvious narrative to your product.

It is always super nice to meet people who come to the market and they say, I saw you were going to be here and it is so good to see you. That really feeds my soul. I am very grateful for that. I bring them happiness with my cakes and they give me happiness with their support of my small business and coming all the way to that specific market. I have some people who have been following me all along. That makes my day, my month, my year. I can't believe it.

I love that and I think food does bring happiness and I think that you are making it with such happiness; it is connecting you to your home and then the people eating your product love it, it is very symbiotic and connected.

I love it.

Do you have your product in cafes?

I have one cafe and another gourmet store. Wholesaling is not really my plan. I want to give the time and I am only one person making things. I have been contacted by a few and if our businesses align, then I am happy to do it.

Do you have Argentinians who are customers as well?

I actually do. They are slowly finding me by word of mouth or at markets, which is the best advertising for me because if someone recommends my products, and especially if Argentinians, who have the highest bar, like my alfajores, then that is amazing because they know their stuff and can compare it. Slowly I am growing my Argentinian clientele.

If people want to buy your product and they can't get to a market, can they go online and order a box?

Yes, of course. I manage everything on my online shop. They can go in there and browse the different flavours. The most popular one is the mixed box of alfajores. I have boxes of six and twelve, which is how it is done in Argentina. They can order there and I order Australia Express shipping Australia wide, except in the warm months. And I also do local delivery or pick-up. If they have any questions or concerns, they can contact me via Instagram or email.

www.encasacookingspace.com