Le Petit Crรจme started our May DDT with a warm toasted home made croissant (crusty and buttery) and coffee (good coffee but nothing out of the ordinary). Toasted brioche (this one's for you KT!) was oh-so-delicious, with or without jam and butter.
KT please stop reading this now - Brioche French toast was even better - warm maple syrup, brioche soaked with egg custard (except maybe the thickest part in the centre, which was compensated by soaking up copious quantity of syrup). Then there were these lovely little cupcake things - we're told they're yogurt madeleines something or other which was just fabulously light! "I'll take 2 to go, thanks!" [KT: kill me now!!!! ps they look awfully like massive Dutch poffertjes!] 
We missed out on their crepes - both because we needed to save room for further desserts, and that there was no more room on our little table. Never mind - next time!! Ambience was OK, because it was so busy the wait persons were a bit rushed but never without a smile. Definitely will return. [KT: you mean you didn't let greed get the better of you!? last time I checked this was DDT right!??]
I walked past Strawberry Cream many times in the past, but never stopped by despite the temptation. Finally I have a chance to sample their goodies - and with company which are fabulous for sampling many goodies! The cabinet offered many tantalising choices - macarons, tortes, tarts, slices, petit fours, profiteroles … it was fun just watching customers agonise over what to get.
Lemon tart was one of our favourite picks here - tangy and creamy. Creme brulee was average - could be more brulee'd, could be thicker, at least it was smooth. Petit four was extremely sweet so I couldn't taste the vanilla in it. Lucky it was tiny. The St Moritz was a pleasant surprise - nothing like the St Moritz at Lindt chocolate cafe (which was rich and decadent) but fabulously light. Excellent flaky puff pastry, light sponge and chocolate creme patissier, smooth chocolate ganache. Cherry strudel also had lovely flaky pastry, tangy sour cherry filling. But take it easy on the icing sugar!! The Japonaise was layers of chocolate ganache, meringue surrounded by almond flakes - it was a bit "is that it" to most people, as it would be nice to have some dacquoise (almond hazelnut meringue) to add texture and flavour.The big macaron with cream and raspberries was a disappointment - dense shells snowed under icing sugar (my pet peeve - icing sugar should be used sparingly, if it covers anything it is simply to cover imperfections). Which also meant their macarons would be sub-standard - with so much hype over macarons all over Sydey, you'd think a French patisserie would take pride in perfecting macarons?
Boon chocolate was planned as a "look and buy chocolate to go" stop which turned into "look at these gorgeous exquisite chocolates for half an hour and let's sit down and enjoy a shot of chocolate" stop. Excellent ambience with chocolate-coloured wall paper (of course!) and jazzy music. An extensive menu included hot chocolate, chocolate shot, chocolate mousse, iced chocolate and any other chocolate variations imaginable. "Caballeros de Manila" chocolate shot set will give anybody a chocolate high - rich, velvety, bittersweet chocolate with an amazing spicy flavour ("75% chocolate with coffee, nutmeg, paprika, muscovado sugar with note of lapsang souchong tea and tobacco notes"). With each chocolate costing $2.50 it is a little hard to justify the indulgence but they were exquisite. Select flavours were sampled : Mira (white chocolate with Tasmanian mountain pepper berry and strawberry - what should pepper berry taste like? All we could taste were the strawberry and white chocolate), Balsamico (balsamic vinegar with strawberry praline - couldn't taste the balsamic vinegar though?), Isabella (dark chocolate with Mexican chilli - mmm spicy!!), Jasmin (dark chocolate jasmine tea - lovely fragrance), there was also a honey caramel I couldn't remember the name of (gorgeous honey flavour that didn't overpower the caramel or vice versa), and a lime zest one which only had a hind of lime.
It was simply a gorgeous shop. We weren't allowed to photograph the store but we promised to come back and sample more, despite the $2.50 per chocolate price tag. [KT: Me 3!!!]
Have we had enough? Well a normal person would have given up by now but we soldiered on. Frozen yogurt on a cold drizzly day doesn't sound appealing, but the taste was worth it - the lightly tart frozen yogurt sort of cleansed our palate and it was a refreshing break from the rich chocolate. Surprisingly I finished the whole serve without trouble even after being officially overdosed on sugar from the previous stops. The upside-down cow provided some amusement…. Wowcow!
Planning a bakery for the last stop was strategic - it makes sense buying a loaf of organic crusty sourdough at the end of our tour so we don't need to carry it for the whole day. Apart from excellent loaves of bread, Infinity Bakery also have some gorgeous looking pastries - cute mini lemon meringue tart (good pastry, tangy lemon overpowered by extremely sweet Italian meringue - nice overall), wholesome almond orange zest slice (could have that as breakfast if I wanted to), and probably the best tart for the day - fresh raspberry and vanilla creme tart with wonderful short pastry and rich creamy creme, topped with fresh raspberries. A freebie pumpkin bread was appreciated though my guess was that this was a failed experimental batch as it was tough. Ah well, freebie is always welcome!
Overall, an awesome day as always. A little disappointed with Strawberry Cream but all the other places were more than enjoyable, even towards the end when everyone was on a sugar high and didn't think we could have more sweets. If that was not a double dose of sweets making up for April, I don't know what was. Sorry KT, you missed out - again - and for the rest of this year - on some fantastic sweets. [KT: D'oh!] And the firemen we walked pass a couple of times!!! [KT: Double d'oh!!] Welcome newbies - Jo all the way from South Africa (here to do a pastry course - of course you had to be here!!) and Martyn all the way from level 9 of Kolling with a sweet tooth and keen on a good tart!![KT: If I was Martyn I'd take that as an insult...]Next month is our half yearly home bake DDT - the theme will be FLOWERS. NOT things that are SHAPED like flowers. But sweets with a floral flavour. Believe me it's not TOO hard - tricky as always, but there are more edible flowers out there than you realise. Start your creative juices and see you end of June!! (but don't everybody do something rose-flavoured … I beg of you!!)
PS you ought to be relieved I didn't accept the suggestion of "Heston's Feast" for a theme … yet. muhahahahah!!!
