Half-yearly home bake to desserts to destress!

And the reason this was posted late was the month of hell that was June... Ironically, the very inspiration for our home bake! 

In spite of the workload, we made an effort, with a deliciously moist and light chocolate sponge filled with strawberry compote, coated with Italian meringue; salted dulce de leche tarts, chocolate macarons with ganache, and a deliciously light and morish South African milk tart! 

Maybe not the most exciting homebake event, but absolutely hit the mark when it comes to destressing!

A walk along the city south

Yes we've been there before; yes it's old favourites; but just like comfort food, these classics will never be out of favour with us. Maybe, the day salted caramel falls out of favour with the general population, I'll eat avocado for a change (*NB avocado, along with oysters, are two of my food aversions*)

Anyway, it was a spectacular autumn day in Sydney - gloriously blue sky, warm sunshine, and we strolled. First stop Coffee Tea & Me, which turns out to be a hole in the wall but it serves spectacular coffee (Campos) that seem very popular among the locals. But we decided to move on to our next stop Breadfern, with their tempting pastries and beautiful rustic breads. I opted for a simple chocolate croissant, flaky and chocolatey, and a large skinny flat white..... breakfast done. Happy.

Serious dessert was served at La Renaissance Waterloo. La Renaissance is dear to us dessertees, it's never failed to impress. It was their macaron that I first fell in love with, a simple French vanilla creme icing. Simplicity done perfectly.

It was tempting to go for some of our old favourites, but there were new items in that counter! So we had two pieces of art today - Music by Vivaldi and painting by Monet. Seriously. Chocolate and orange with pistachio was symphony to my taste buds, and as much as we devour food with our mouths, we eat with our eyes. Thank you Monet, for a raspberry and lychee masterpiece, that was delectable both with our eyes and our tongues.

The joy! Happiness was autumn sun, beautiful desserts, great company.

It was a gorgeous day out, pity we couldn't have more as we're a bit sweet'ed out. But a sunny walk was all that we needed ^_^

And our next adventure? June Homebake! Theme = "Stressed" : You do realise stressed spelt backwards is desserts, right? So bring us a dessert that destresses - and lets chill and forget about the woes of the world, if only for a short while!

CS

No official dessert tour ... so what were we up to this month?

Lots, actually! The month of the Easter long weekend, plus ANZAC day, meant lots of time away and catching up with people. My girls and I went away for Easter to the Yarra Valley for a weekend of wine, food, rest and repeat; here's a visual diary of our shenanigans.....

Goodnight .... with the milky way!

The fine things in life from Barangaroo

I've been meaning to visit the Barangaroo Precinct for a while, and once it was decided that Barangaroo was to be our next dessert stop, I could not help but get excited especially at our primary destination - 12 Micron - but alas, there are other potential items on offer... so here we go!

First stop - Short Stop Coffee and Donuts. Donuts, you say... why?? Because Short Stop serves not only decent, not overly sweet donuts, and Market Lane coffee, which I love, and thought I can only get from Melbourne.

It didn't disappoint - fluffy coffee and walnut donut to go with my morning flat white, sitting by the side walk, watching the morning walkers/cyclists go by.

Apré, We strolled around looking for a potential lunch place, and decided to go straight to 12 Micron although our booking wasn't until 2pm...

Yeah. Gotta come back and sample their meals another time. And the spectacularly creative and decadent dessert menu. We had some amazing lunch that lined our stomachs for sweet stuff, the highlight of our day. Alright you purists out there who are shaking your heads at our savoury lunches on a dessert day ... Well, come to 12 Micron and you'll find it hard to resist too!

Anyway, I had a Gin and Tonic (gin and tonic jelly, lime mousse, lemon curd, lime gels, sherbety lime and white chocolate), while my friend had a "Mandarin" (chocolate, mousse sphere, mandarin sphere, mandarin curd, tonka bean ice cream).

Just look at these gorgeous goodies... 

But wait, there's more - just while we thought it was over, our lovely waiter came with a final sweetener of black current jelly (mouthwateringly tangy, like eating a mouthful of black current concentrate); white chocolate dipped peppermint pistachio biscuit (light and flaky and intensely flavoured), and a chocolate truffle filled with liquid salted caramel (need I say more??) It was amazing, delicious, out of this world, all that.

Did I say I'm coming back?

Thus ended our glorious sunny, warm day out at Barangaroo, stuffed and happy, vowing to return hopefully soon; even if I have that duck again I would be happy ....

CS

Cocktails night out!

This is a first for the Dessertees - an often-talked-about-but-never-materialised plan, but at other non-DDT times a reasonably regular social activity... COCKTAILS! So it was decided that we must also showcase the exciting cocktail scene in the city (to start with) on our regular tours!

I could not help but start with a cocktail bar with catchy name of Rabbit Hole - who can resist starting the evening with 'Down the Rabbit Hole'! And it was a worthy start, for the cocktails were creative and delicious.....

Orange Fairy: Cointreau, mandarin liqueur, orange juice, lemon, orange bitter, fairy floss , cointreau peals

Blue Haze: Larios Gin, Cointreau, Pineapple-Orange juice, Bitters, Lime, Fairy floss

Kraken's Prey: Kraken rum, Licor 43, vanilla, lime, squid ink & chocolate; Wood and Smoke - Laphroaig 10yo, Auchentoshan Three Wood, Jim Beam Devil’s Cut, acid solution, cinnamon smoke& bitters (not the Japanese whiskey of the glass)

And a couple of mocktails for the sensible and healthy participant :p 

So a cocktail each later, we walked out of the Rabbit Hole towards another watering hole ... Wait, where is this? How do we find it? The Burrow wasn't easy to find, but it was totally worth it: Great decor and atmosphere, very small, and excellent creative cocktails.

Didn't want to keep my friends waiting so I took a group shot, and because there isn't a menu online, I can only say that these were delicious... From back row - a gin, raspberry and thyme and vinegar concoction; two "Vietnamese coffee" concoctions, a "dark secret" something or other, and the only one I remember (because I had it) - "The Hard Stare" that looks like a glass of iced water. 

Surprisingly I was still able to walk a straight line after that potent glass of "iced water" ... and again, the next stop was not easy to find! The Gilt Lounge was upstairs at the back of a hotel, walk through this stair case, through that corridor, it's at the back of something ... We found it eventually, and it was another worthy find, with amazing cocktails (again)!

A Spanish dessert wine Primitivo Quile Muscatel (not cocktail, sorry) at the front, a couple of refreshing and cool drinks at the back (didn't ask what my friends had!) and a spectacularly unusual "Ghost of Mary" - tomato consomme, pancetta and jalapeno vodka (it smelled like chilli!), celery bitters. Cool... I mean, HOT! 

 And that was it. Aimed for 5, expected to do 3, and we did. And walked out still standing tall and with no hangover the next day. And there are now a few places we wish to revisit to sample more of their goodies!


CS

Catching a tram ... Foodie outing at The Tramsheds

The Tramsheds at Harold Park, an old tram depot turned foodie hub, holds a dozen or so foodie establishments, but the amazing thing is, they all look fabulous! It's easy to organise a dessert tour there but then the main question is where to start, what to have, and how many we can manage...

We started our day with a coffee and a very healthy breakfast at Garcon. Serving Little Marionette coffee (yay to great coffee!) and pastries from Black Star, we were spoilt... Pity there wasn't that many of us, and wanting to explore some more, we shared a chia and black rice pudding that was fit for a king, a queen, or any foodie in the world.

Saying a bientot to Garcon, we moved on to some (gasp!!) light lunch at The Butcher and the Farmer. It was a warm day, our appetite wasn't geared for their signature meals or wines, but a light salad, charcuterie plate and some cool drinks really hit the spot....

Then we had some deliciously tangy raspberry sorbet and a summery trifle with muscat jelly. All refreshing and perfectly suited to a warm day like today.

At the end of the day we could only stare at the hand made pasta drying on the racks at Flour Eggs Water, admire the walls of wine and the tapas at Bodega 1904, and curious over the international cuisines on offer such as Osaka Trading Co or Bekya.

In short, we shall return!

CS.