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!

2016 end of year home bake - stars and stripes!

2016 has been an interesting year. Wouldn't be my favourite, but it certainly was quite a character of a year. One good thing about a year like this? Makes one appreciate the uneventful, but peaceful and smooth sailing times.

Everybody loves drama and this year's US election was full of it. As much as it was drawn out and painful to watch at times, it made for some memorable entertainment. It was the mad Americans that  inspired this end of year theme.

Cookies and cream is very American. So is peanut butter and chocolate combo. I'd have wanted to throw a banana to the peanut butter sandwich combo (the King lives as long as his peanut butter and banana sandwich exists), except that I used up my bananas in my banoffee tart - also very America, I think.

Cookies and creme cupcake

Chocolate and peanut butter slice

Cookies and cream cream cheese balls

Banofee tarts

And to cleanse the palate? Not typically "American" but we were grateful for this refreshing strawberry and mango sorbet. The basil leaves are a garnish, though it will probably add an interesting flavour to the sorbet ... Next time, maybe!

With that, farewell 2016, and may 2017 be better for everyone!

CS

Chocoholics, anonymous. Welcome to the Smooth Festival of Chocolate!

Welcome to the best city in the world!! 

And this was made even better with lots of velvety delicious chocolatey desserts. With brilliant weather like this, The Rocks gets incredibly busy - but thanks to the forethought of the organisers, the event was spread out to avoid heavy crowds at any one spot. 

However, queues are not avoidable... Especially the popular stalls like Black Star and of course, Zumbo, whos endless creativity had fattened up who knows how many sweet tooths like myself. 

Two out of 4 Zumbo goodies here. After consuming so many items, it was really hard to remember what they were... one with chocolate mousse, pastry, passionfruit custard; the other was chocolate, raspberry, caramel, custard... Something or other. Both yum, not over sweet, classic Zumbo! Thanks for existing.... 

The most popular Zumbo goodie however was the reinvention of the Golden Gaytime. And I believe that was the most popular dessert of the event!! Ice cream + caramel sandwiched in chocolate macaron shells, coated with chocolate and nuts. It was Golden Gaytime on steroids. Amazing was not enough of a word to describe it! 

If I had to find fault in it... It was not easy to eat. Too big for a mouth, and it was quite ready to fall off the meager popsicle stick. Thankfully the chocolate and nut shell stayed put so we were able to hold on until they were consumed!

There were of course plenty of other goodies - some I managed to devour, like the Profiterole Project's freshly piped creme patissiere that lured me to their stall and the crunchy toffee didn't disappoint; Others I could only look at while my pancreas protested.... I stared at the gorgeous creations from Black Star and Textbook Patisseries and could only say, NEXT YEAR ... At least the watermelon cake (this year it's white chocolate watermelon cake) should still be available from Black Star. But the other desserts? Hopefully they will stay on in their respective patisseries for at least a little longer. 

I did have one of these colourful croissants - how beautiful are they! It was a cherry ripe croissant - chocolate croissant with cherry custard. Flaky croissant, light tang of the cherry, excellent breakfast :D

From a distance, that smoke was a tantalising advertisement for something savoury! We could spot the smoke from Circular Quay! This was a very welcome break from all the sweetness - charcoal chicken/pork skewers with a deliciously thick and sticky sauce, which was gloriously sweet and savoury and finger licking good (better than KFC, by far!!). And with that, we soldiered on for more sweetness....

However apart from having to queue to get my food (and these food stalls were really quick so the wait was minimal), I refused to queue to enter the chocolatiers' hall or the Lindt Lounge. But it was a great idea having chocolatiers indoors - the sun wouldn't have been too kind to the delicate chocolates!

This year unlike the previous two, I missed out on the blogger/social media special treatments because I didn't check the emails early enough. Oops ... So I missed out on VIP passes to the dessert demonstrations... but my trusty camera zoomed in to one of the goodies just to say, yup I was there.... even if I was on the side line, watching other VIPs eat what should also have been mine :p

Thus passed another glorious Spring weekend at the most beautiful place of the most wonderful city in the world. One never grows tired of it.... <3

CS

Eating like a Hobbit at The Shire

We who love to indulge, are proud to call ourselves Hobbits of the Shire. Although, not really Middle Earth, but close enough is good enough right! 

The Sutherland Shire is blessed with lovely beaches, waterways, and a beautiful green leafy suburban environment. It had unfortunately been tainted by the Cronulla Riot about 10 years ago, however - it was not initiated by lovely Shire folks, leaving an unappealing stain to this beautiful spot in Sydney.

We were, however, here to eat. For me it is a long way away, having to cross two bridges to get there, but my friends from the Shire promised me it will be worth my while!

Today's first stop was the serene (but immensely popular) Hazelhurst Cafe/Gallery. We arrived in perfect time, just before the lazy brunch crowd. Easy order - one of each desserts on the menu - though drinks was more of a dilemma: do I go with a standard coffee, or a fresh juice mix, or a milkshake .... oh the choices!

When our sweet indulgences arrived, we were in awe. Sorry, my fellow Hobbits, you must wait for the food photographer/pesky blogger... we know how annoying we are.

Banana & cinnamon doughnuts, strawberry & rhubarb pavlova, white chocolate, kaffir lime cheese cake. We loved the colourful presentation of all the divine desserts - they are an art gallery and they know how to present food - and all these gorgeous things were delicious. Our unanimous favourite was the doughnuts - a surprise to all because none of us were particularly fond of doughnuts. The pavlova was delicious, although the meringue was a little sticky. We also adored that cheese cake, with a mouth-wateringly tangy yuzu curd.

Ah, lunch time already! Time flies when we're having fun!

I will refrain from posting the savoury items (GASP!) but, zucchini flower with a prawn filling, the crispy duck salad and the proscchiuto, and the fig and goats cheese bruschetta were all very delicious. Featured here the bruschetta... because figs are sweet....


Next stops - small patisseries dotted along Gymea mall. Purple Patisserie - small shop with a few tables, and two cabinets filled with simple but well made sweets such as our Mars bar cheese cake, Oreo mousse, banoffe tart, baked cheese cake with meringue. Fun little packets of indulgence. 

Because we were all over sugared and lethargic from the warm mid afternoon sun, the Portuguese Bakery was our final stop: Choc hazelnut, salted caramel, and traditional Portuguese tarts. All went down well, but our favourite was still the traditional tart - good o' classics!

That was the end of our sweet indulgence for the day. A few of us decided to go for a stroll along the coast, useful for burning off a few Calories, and to lower stress level. And we were greeted with a few playful whales in the distance - woohoo! 

CS