DDT finale 2009 - picnic that wasn't meant to be...

Jan/Feb saw DDT on "holidays" as our CEO was on holidays (didn't stop her and others in indulgence), but we made up for it in Newtown (chocolate caramel 'goo' tart), Balmain (Adriano - enough said), Glebe (chocolate lasagne), the amazing mid year home bake ("interesting, unusual, but noice"), Paddington (favourite palmier), Northside (relaxing afternoon at the park), Adriano again (because we can), Good Food Month (5 SugarHits in 2 weeks) and finally, the finale, Jazz dessert picnic at Berry Island Reserve.

Except we didn't have a picnic. Weather forecast of 41 degrees Celsius resulted in a last minute scrambling change in location - from a outdoor jazz picnic to an indoor smorgasboard of desserts. Reluctant as we were, it was the smart decision, as air conditioning, comfy chairs and tables, fridge, ice blocks, cold drinks aplenty... and Jazz on the laptop.

16 DDDs were present at the dessert, and we have a heavy lean towards chocolate-based desserts (what else would you expect!!). Mental note - will need to be more organized and coordinate the participants for the next home bake so we have a wider variety.

Here are the desserts and their owners:

*KT: light and airy mango coconut meringue "cup cakes" and this rich, moreish pumpkin slice with maple syrup cream cheese icing topped with pecan. Y U M.
*Cindy - Macarons with cherries in chocolate ganache, and chocolate with chocolate ganache; chocolate peanut butter sandwich cookies (which were meant to be chocolate macarons but were happy failures that still tasted good).
*Emily sans Roland - light and refreshing and absolutely CUTE buttermilk pudding in chocolate cup, chocolate mousse in chocolate cups.
*Rick (debutant DDD! Welcome!) - fruit salad (to help cut the calorie consumption... which was undone by a bowl of chocolate fondue sauce provided by CS)
*Vanessa - warm chocolate brownies freshly baked this morning (signature dessert)
*Suat & friend (debutant DDD! Welcome!) - rose water and cardamon (?) rice pudding - refreshing and fragrant!
*Katherine (debutant DDD who we knew was a keen and able baker - Welcome!) - gorgeously presented mini-cheesecake with biscuit and oat base, topped with brandy soaked cherries
*Annika (debutant DDD! Welcome!) - moist chocolate and raspberry brownies

*Miriam, Brian and Jamyson (and dinosaur friends) - rocky road sans nuts, and chocolate-biscuit Xmas trees!!

*Ewa - chocolate log which suffered a little under the heat, but still tasted good
*A "non qualifier" offering from Ruth: a savoury dish of cheese, eggs, filo pastry slices which were hugely popular.
*Other offerings that were not photographed: Ben and Joan's iced coffee and sangria, Suat's rosewater cordial, and Cindy's chocolate fondue for dipping fruit and drizzling on anything you fancy. Many thanks to everyone for making the effort of preparing something, and putting up with the extreme heat!!

That's a wrap - another year, gone (nearly); this will be the last DDT for 2009 and despite missing out on the jazz, there will be other opportunities... Stay tuned for DDT January 2010!! Look forward to seeing you all (you, your friends, family, family dog) in the future dessert indulgences!!!

Divine Dessert Tour, November 2009.

Vicky's absentee contribution to the last DDT of the year.

October Over-indulgence: Good Food Month is here!

October - Month of indulgence! Good food everywhere, new menu everywhere, and it made DDT CEO's life both easy and difficult: Easy because there were much to choose from, difficult because there were much to choose from! Having pored through the SugarHit list, we carefully selected 5 out of the possible 20-odd sweet tooth offerings, and duly report to fellow DDDs our critiques: (if it weren't for Glass Brasserie being all booked out, it'd be 6!)

Sir Stamford: Strawberry and cream shortbread sandwich, a layered treat filled with strawberries and cream, with layers of soft ginger shortbread in between, and Browns Brothers dessert wine. It was such a simple yet wonderfully refreshing and delicious dessert, not trying too hard to be sophisticated but achieving a lovely end result.  But of course I may be biased - Love strawberries!!

Sean's Kitchen at the Star City Casino: Chocolate and five-spice tart with Isigny creme fraiche served with Hennessey XO. We asked if we had the option of sweet dessert wine, but our lovely waitress said their dessert chef believed the cognac matched better with the chocolate tart, so we accepted the non-option. Strangely they offered cognac with ice - I'm no connoisseur but isn't brandy/cognac preferably consumed neat? Anyway, it did taste better without ice. As with the chocolate tart - it was nice, but we didn't feel it was outstanding. It was deliciously smooth, but we were underwhelmed by the spice (or somewhat disappointed with the lack thereof). In fact I was told that my chilli chocolate creme brulee was better (I'm extremely proud though abashed). Beautiful interior and funky couches though.

Welcome Rosanna and Vicky!

Radisson Hotel (Liverpool St): Mango bread and butter pudding, coconut creme brulee with coconut brittle, sparkling muscato rosa. Sounded  promising but disappointed - must have a token creme brulee for the DDT, but it had the texture of flan (or Spanish version of creme caramel) instead, and didn't have brulee on top but just a bit of caramel colouring... very disappointing. Mango bread and butter pudding was like bread soaked in some mango smoothie made with frozen mango - it was bulky, didn't have a good mango flavour or aroma. Sparkling pink muscato - very refreshing, but if it wasn't consumed soon enough, it started to taste like stale Chardonnay ... so drink up!!

WELCOME Markus to your first DDT!!

And looking over our shoulders we saw someone leave left over desserts on their table - not even half consumed!! Says a lot about how much they enjoyed it.

Perama at Petersham - glykomezedekia - tasting plate which changes week by week. We missed out on the baklava ice cream which is a shame, but the rest was simply amazing! Rice pudding with apple and rhubarb, tangy; Nut kataifi slice: nutty and sticky, some didn't like it, I thought it was great; Thiples stack - honey pastry with yogurt and fruit sandwich, probably the more 'average' out of the desserts; chocolate biscuit halva and sour cherry sandwich: like a chocolate biscuit with peanut butter sorbet sandwich - absolutely match made in heaven! We also got a choice of muscat dessert wine or a brandy, plus tea/coffee/hot chocolate. Certainly the most generous we've seen of SugarHit offers (ever) and wonderfully delicate and unique flavours.

WELCOME Suat and your two friends to your first DDT!!!

Chocolate assiette at Kings Cross Hotel - "black and white tasting plate" of white chocolate panna cotta with berry compote - tangy berry compote a good contrast with the sweet smooth creamy panna cotta, chocolate and praline sorbet absolutely gorgeous, richly chocolately but refreshingly light, I can't describe this juxtaposition but it was my pick for the night; raspberry 'millefeuille' which was three fresh raspberries placed under a bit of pastry (was probably decoration only for the tasting plate?); chocolate fondant - rich, hearty, but I couldn't help but suck up to the CEO that I would have her chocolate fondant ANY TIME over this one!!!!

WELCOME Herman and Vanessa, to your first DDT!

Revisiting Adriano

CEO Extraordinaire KT is off to Buenos Aires, dancing the tango, so for the first time the CEO is absent from the DDT event!! We organised a revisit to Adriano's which changes menu every six months, so it's time to check out the new lot of goodies on offer.

While waiting for people to turn up, the inquisitive secretary dashed across the road where over a dozen people were waiting for their coffee, while more and more patrons turned up despite the queue. There must be something worthwhile about Bertoni's… And there was. I saw some pretty decent Italian pastries on the counter, and picked out a Sfogliatelle - puff pastry baked crispy on the outside, with ricotta and mascarpone citrus filling, which I had at A&P Sulfaro's at Haberfield but didn't know its name - and it was moreish!! According to Wikipedia, a variation of this is the pastizzi, of Malta, usually a savoury ricotta filling (which we had at Pastizzi's at Newtown). And pretty good coffee too, probably worth the 15 min wait!! Despite being incredibly busy, the barista still managed to have a pleasant chat with me, and when my coffee was ready, he waved madly to get my attention … can't imagine how he remembered who ordered what, but that service (and the coffee) was memorable.

Note: while I waited an Italian Mama came out with a plate of melt-in-your-mouth shortbreads to soothe the ever-patient caffeine addicts in need of that fix. Oh how I love the way it crumbled on my tongue!!!

Moving on - and picked up the following from AZ's : almond croissant (for Mademoiselle CEO), "sugar lip" - custard filled doughnut (lemon custard), brown sugar palmier, "upside-down cloud" (scoop of lemon custard atop a meringue case), while long time absentee Rita picked a chocolatey "Ed in the cradle" (mocha mousse with caramel and chocolate). And with these we headed to Adriano's Cafe Chocolat for a sit-down sweet brunch.

Note: While picking and choosing my orders the shop keepers handed me a cracked vanilla macaron "we can't sell anyway" - freebie #2 for today!!!

Poring through the menu thinking I won't need anything else, and "Paris" caught my eyes - ah c'est La Vin en Rose… it's a gorgeous dessert with a rose macaron, strawberry sorbet, lychee, vanilla creme patissier, and a fruit smoothie with what seems like yogurt and chunks of raspberry… being pink all over, it was of course made for me… I could not resist. Meanwhile Rita went for another chocolatey offer of Hamburger - chocolate macaron shells with chocolate ice cream and banana chunks, looking like a chocolate hamburger.

Loic having had to leave early with his friend (who is flying out at 4pm that afternoon) had a modest sweet consumption of a few chocolates and a smoothie.  These were the less adventurous chocolates, nothing like the 'cigar' (made to look like a Cuban cigar, actually contains tobacco leaves) or the salt and vinegar (which was also a flavour amongst Adriano's macarons!!).

Verdict?

I love my pink dessert. Fragrant rose macaron, refreshing sorbet, smooth vanilla custard, chunky tangy fruit smoothie I had to suck really hard to get to. The banana-chocolate ice cream "pate" was super. No fault with the chocolate macaron. "Ed in the cradle" was rich, smooth, intense. The chocolate was so fine, it melted under the sun!! "Upside down cloud" was tangy (the fantastic blob of lemon custard), sweet and crunchy on the outside, and chewy in the centre of the meringue. I was actually a little disappointed - think it could have been more than just lemon custard and meringue, though I couldn't figure out if the meringue was supposed to have a filling or if the chewy almost-nougatine textured centre was the filling?

Sugarlip has the same lemony tangy custard as the Upside down cloud - wonderful combo with the sweet dough. Almond croissant: Fluffy crispy (not the kind KT prefers, but I like it) with a very smooth paste at the bottom of the pastry. Brown sugar palmier - not as light as one from Paddington (La Gerbe d'Or) but I like the caramel'y flavour of brown sugar.

Chocolates: Loic very generously shared his chocolate order with us and I had one with the rose on top (my theme for the day??) and it had a gorgeously smooth ganache filling.

This being a one-stop DDT ended early and again, my stomach was smaller than my ambition - had a big take home pack of left overs at about 1pm… Which meant, mum and dad technically joined us on the dessert tour by sampling the goods on the day of the DDT…?

KT: I'm so proud of you!!!! Oh, and I just electrocuted myself by drooling all over the laptop, fantasising about Adriano - I mean, his desserts...