Baking keeps Adam positive through adversity

It’s usually butchers who hold the mantle for friendliest folk, but baker Adam Gallagher, from Brisbane, could give them a run for their money.

A trained pastry chef, Adam was working for a food ingredients company in 2004 when he sustained paraplegia in a skydiving accident.

He spent the next 3.5 months in the Spinal Injuries Unit where he had to not just physically adapt to life using a wheelchair, but mentally adjust to the associated challenges of having a permanent injury.

“It was definitely tough in the first few weeks inside the Unit thinking my career prospects in baking were over,” Adam said.

“But once I started to move just one toe again, I knew with my determination and strong will I could learn to live with this injury and one day return to my passion for making people happy eating my food again.”

Now working for a healthcare provider in their call centre, Adam said several years ago he began to rekindle his interest in baking and started experimenting with various-flavoured bread loaves.

His testing quickly escalated into a repertoire of gourmet options and he now bakes around 50 loaves every week for customers at the Spinal Injuries Association in Brisbane, as well as a few individual clients.

“I love it, the job satisfaction is the main thing for me,” Adam said.

“I enjoy both the creative process of baking and the end result – to look at 50 loaves of bread and see they’re all perfect is fantastic.”

Adam’s grandfather was also a baker and he likes to think he inherited his baking ability by keeping his recipes simple but fresh.

“I just use flour, yeast and salt – no preservatives – as well as fresh ingredients such as chives, basil, pumpkin, sundried tomato and olives,” Adam said.

“It’s the way bread should be made and it’s reflected in the taste of the product.”

Adam said the secret to a great loaf was also his cooking process, which involved steam.

“I put a cup of hot water in a roasting tray and put the tray at the bottom of the oven,” he said.

“This creates a shot of steam that makes the bread crusty on the outside and just a little chewy inside.”

Adam spends up to 15 minutes kneading his mixtures to make sure the gluten is activated and prime for baking.

As well as his love of baking, Adam also gets to pursue his other interests – cooking and scuba diving – by volunteering for the commercial boat Big Cat Reality in Redcliffe, Queensland.

“I run the galley and get to go out every six weeks to cook and scuba dive – it’s the perfect combination,” he said.

Spinal Injuries Association Chief Executive Officer Mark Henley said Adam’s positivity and enthusiasm for life demonstrated that having a spinal cord injury was not an impediment to having a job, partner, enjoying exercise and other hobbies.

An example of some of the delicious loaves that Adam bakes.