The Paddock Bakery: The Best Gold Coast Cookies!?

The Paddock Bakery is a charming cafe hidden in the backstreets of Miami on the Gold Coast. They serve up decadent sweets, wood-fired bread, plenty of savory dishes, and all types of coffee to wash it all down.

Paddock Bakery’s story starts with a dilapidated, empty home that was relocated to the Cold Coast from Redcliffe in the 70s. Ursula and Ben Watts saw the potential, and transformed the property into a cozy cafe while keeping the original rustic charm.

According the the website:

“At the heart of it all is our wood fired oven, her burning light never completely fading, forever keeping the soul of Paddock alive. She is where it all started, made with antique red bricks collected from all around Australia and her doors salvaged from the first bakery in Tasmania. She’s endlessly nurtured with experienced hands usually covered in flour, creating what we believe to be the best wood-fired Sourdough around.”

Paddock opened its doors to hungry customers in 2014, and it quickly became a well known institution and Gold Cost “must-try” spot.

I am a bit of cookie-junkie, or shall I say connoisseur to sound more refined?

From Taipei to New York City to my quarantine hotel in Sydney, every place I go tends to involve a cookie hunt. So when I caught whiff of Paddock’s epic cookies, I knew had to see for myself.

We first pulled up to Paddock Bakery at the start of our Queensland camper van trip. “Just a couple cookies for the road…..” We walked up to the little to-go shed and scooped up a Caramilk Cookie and Nutella Stuffed Choc Chip. The cookies were certainly impressive in size; a bit bigger then my palm (I have very small hands, I might add), with solid weight.

The Caramilk cookie was the star; dense, gooey, crunchy on the outside, with a delectable dollop of a gooey Caramilk concoction and chunks of Caramilk on top. If you love Caramilk as much as I do, you’ll be head over heals for this cookie. Each bite had a nice balance of filling to cookie base, and the scorching Queensland sun ensured that the filling remained perfectly oozey.

The Nutella stuffed choc chip was also a win. While the cookie base itself could have been a bit a bit less baked for my liking, the oozing Nutella and still melty chocolate chips added that gooey quality I lust for in a cookie. While it was a spot on cookie, Nutella choc chip is a fairly common cookie flavor, which is why I preferred my Caramilk cookie experience.

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Fast forward three months, and we’ve found ourselves hanging around in Brisbane. With memories of Paddock dancing through my head, we decided a second trip was in order. This time, we sprung for a specialty cookie: S’mores.

The chocolate base had white chocolate chips scattered about and was stuffed with a decadent marshmallow filling. The rich, not too sweet chocolate base was a lovely contrast to the marshmallow. A light caramel chocolate drizzle added a little va-va-voom to tie it all together. There was a roasted marshmallow on top which didn’t really add to the taste, but it certainly added a nice visual component.

I was admittedly surprised by how good these cookies were.

Often, mega-cookies have an almost rubbery, bland taste because they are pumped full of butter and oil to obtain the massive size. The cookies from Paddock Bakery didn’t fall victim to this mega-cookie faux-pas. Each had nice flavors with spot on textures that can certainly rival the New York City cookie scene.

If you find yourself on the Gold Coast, Paddock Bakery needs to be on your “must-try” list!