Kosie Country Made - Producer Profile
As a little girl, Kim Broomhall dreamt of making Christmas puddings and fruit mince pies as her ‘grown-up’ job. She always helped her mum in the kitchen using family recipes to turn out wonderful treats for the family at Christmas time.
Getting married at 20 years of age, Kim’s mum gifted her the family recipe for Christmas pudding, and Kim made her eight-year-old-self’s dreams a reality when, 11 years ago, she started producing Christmas puddings commercially.
Kim says that puddings and desserts have a special place in her heart because they are served at the end of the meal when everyone is lingering at the table and family stories are shared.
“It’s a happy time where stories flow freely; desserts are a natural feel-good food”, she says.
Kim has since perfected the recipe and says it took her five years to really nail the process of how to make her puddings in commercial quantities without compromising on taste and quality of ingredients.
Kim’s children Rosie, 11, and Cory, 15, help out, with Kim embracing the learning moments in all the steps of making puddings. She says that Cory, who is autistic, is excellent at cutting the ribbons and calico out perfectly. Making the puddings with her children also helps Kim connect with the true meaning of Christmas and her personal values of good food and family.
Kim first worked with Hill Street in 2015 when she met Steve Longmore, now Hill Street’s CEO, at the Deloraine Craft Fair:
“It was the last day of the fair and we were about to pack up. I had all my samples on display for tasting. It had been a big few days but something told me not to pack up yet. Along comes a tall fellow who works his way from one end of the table to the other, tasting everything! He then introduced himself as Steve from Hill Street and told me he wanted to see me at 9am on Monday in his office at Hill Street! I met with Steve and the Store Manager Trudy Beveridge and the rest is history.”
Kim’s first Hill Street order for Christmas that year was 30 500 gram puddings and ten one kilogram puddings. She thought that was a huge order and wondered how she would do it. Today, Kim supplies all ten Hill Street stores, amongst many other retailers around Tasmania, and produces about 6500 puddings a year.
The range has grown over the years in response to customers’ requests. When the range came to the West Hobart store, owner Dianna Nikitaras asked Kim to produce a gluten-free version and a vegan version, and also to make six-packs of mince pies. Kim developed these products by tweaking the original recipes. She remained true to her commitment to good quality food and not compromising on taste, making her own apple sauce as a substitute for egg, when she could have taken the easy route and used a commercial egg replacement.
This sums up Kim’s approach – she says the difference between her products and others’ is that she puts her whole heart and passion into her products and wants them to taste exactly as they should.
“The one comment I get over and over is: ‘This is exactly like how my mum/grandma’s pudding used to taste’ – I love that!”, says Kim.
Kim’s favourite product is the Christmas pudding, which she eats all year round and uses as a fruit cake. From her jam range, her favourite is Orchard Bliss, a jam with special meaning as she invented it as a wedding gift to her brother, who proposed to his then-future wife in the family’s pear, plum and apple orchard. The jam is made from these fruits.
In the future Kim hopes to teach the art of making Christmas puddings and other treats, and hand down the tradition of baking with love for others.
This year for Christmas Kim, her children and her partner’s family will spend Christmas together, enjoying locally produced meats and a ham, as well as home-grown veggies. In the afternoon they will go down to the Meander River which winds through Kim’s property, eat leftovers, and relax, watching the children swim and raft.
Kim shared a recipe with us for using up leftover Christmas Pudding.
Kim’s Christmas pudding icecream:
Whip up 600mL thickened cream with a tin of condensed milk until soft peaks form. Add crumbled pieces of Christmas pudding (about 1 -1.5 cups). As an optional extra, stir through half a jar of Orchard Bliss jam.
Spoon into a container and freeze. It’s delightful in cones or as it comes.
