Millers' Local Bakehouse owner Emma Huber on nerves, anxiety and croissants

Her two bakeries often have large queues of people outside, they wait with anticipation, their mouths watering.

This might be the stuff dreams are made of for other businesses, but Huber said it's anxiety causing.

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"I usually will wait out the back because it makes me really anxious. I feel like people have expectations and I don't want to fall short on them," she said.

"It's just a bit of an imposter thing where I'm wondering: 'these people must have the wrong place'.

"It still makes me really nervous."

Millers' Local Bakehouse - which has locations in Wollongong and Bulli - was one of the first businesses I noticed after moving to the region in February, 2023, to take up a job at the Illawarra Mercury.

"What's with the long queue of people outside the bakery on Crown Street?" I asked my colleagues in the newsroom.

"Ohh" "ahh" and "oh my God" were among the reactions. So too was "you've got to try the croissants", "it's amazing in there" and "it's an institution".

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Such pressure. When I told Huber this, she let out a nervous giggle.

"Oh, that's a huge compliment, that's really nice," she said.

The success of Millers did come as a surprise, but she's thankful, very thankful for the support from the community.

Her skills as a pastry cook were self-taught. When she was under 10 years old she first started working in her mum's pastry kitchen.

"I'd make the baked good boxes, that was my first paying job,"

Huber's been a familiar face in the Illawarra's hospitality industry for decades, and along with her partner Yon Miller they ran Sandy Goodwich and also Eat at Sandy's.

They closed Sandy Goodwich four years ago and it was "absolutely the right decision" she said.

Miller's Local Bakehouse opened a month or two afterwards.

Did she ever dare to imagine it would grow into a place where hordes of people queue outside waiting for it to open?

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"No, absolutely not. Like 100 per cent no," she said.

She'd only hoped to work for herself and that it would allow her freedom to be creative with her baking.

It's six months since Millers opened in Bulli, and while it's been a success, she's already planning her next moves for the store.

Food talks and presentations (she's passionate about food sustainability and production) will feature, so will a crop swap.

She's also keen to get back to her hobbies - printmaking, gardening and beach trips with her "mad springer spaniel" Henry.

She no longer works with her partner, they realised it probably wasn't the best way to lengthen the life of their family. He now manages a Japanese izakaya restaurant, Chiba Nights.

In her kitchen at home, she loves to eat bread, cheese, eggs and a "hell of a lot of greens".

She loves a food swap, and will give her neighbour across the road a loaf of bread in exchange for fresh eggs.

A friend who uses her bakery as an office will pay 'rent' in the form of "beautiful greens from her garden".

Really good butter.

They're complicated to make, Huber says, and the dough must have the right amount of fat in it, "almost like a brioche dough".

"Then you roll that really, really thin. In between the layers of the dough, there's a layer of butter. You get butter, pastry, butter, pastry, butter, pastry," she said.

While the yeast (she uses a mix of sour dough and conventional yeasts) helps it to rise, so does the water in the butter which turns to steam and "pushes up the layer above".

What does she put on a croissant that she's eating?

More butter (it's an Australian, hand-churned small batch butter from Pepe Sayer) and berry jam.

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