ragingyoghurt

Category Archives: cake

until noon today, it had been more than a week since i last went to zumbo. i thought it was necessary to cut down the visits because… well, it wasn’t so much that my clothes were feeling tight, but my skin certainly was. is that worse?

but we popped in today, just to see if the macaron were hanging out in their acrylic tubs, and it was like a display of precious jewels: red, purple and orange. two of them i had not encountered before — raspberry and blackcurrant — and the third i just got for good measure because it’s in my top three favourites.

the raspberry macaron, from the bite and a half i managed to wheedle out of maeve, had a smooth and mild candy-like flavour. by which i mean candy that has been flavoured with real raspberry juice, rather than like, whatever they put in frangos, by which i mean, if you eschew fresh raspberries because they are sometimes tart and intense, then this macaron could be good for you, because it tastes of raspberries that are not tart and intense.

the blackcurrant macaron is still in its cellophane baggie in my backpack, but i’m sort of hoping it tastes like ribena. i’ll let you know.

the mandarin macaron also survived the mid-afternoon sugar slump, but i know it well and i love it.

before the early lunchtime crowd forced us back out onto the street, i managed to find out that zumbo is now also a purveyor of sonoma breads. indeed, i looked up at the bread shelf high above my head, and in the corner was my favourite and my best soy and linseed sourdough loaf, with the whole soybeans. this is great news because it means i will no longer have to make a special detour in glebe for it. yay.

and also, because my attempts to eat less cake by making fewer trips to zumbo didn’t quite work out, because, well, if you’ve been reading, you’ll see that i’ve been to a bunch of other pastryshops in the inner city instead… because of that, another reason to stop at zumbo every day or so will not be such a terrible thing.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 21 August 2007 at 10:33 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, drawn

haberfield is a bus and then another bus away from me, and even though the trip surprised me by being much quicker than i’d expected, in the last couple of years, i have been, let me see, oh, just the once.

this is a pity because the main street goes something like this: chocolate, cheese, pizza, deli, cake, pasta, cake, supermarket where two or three aisles are filled with more shapes of pasta than you have ever seen, and then, on the corner, pasticceria papa.

it was raining monday morning, and though i had mostly psyched myself up to take on the temperamental bus schedule, i was very pleased when ana said she’d swing by and pick us up. so we arrived mostly dry, in great time, and ready to eat, which we did.

this is what two big girls, two little girls, and a one-week-of-gestation-remaining baby can put away, in just under two hours:
veal arancino
prosciutto pizza
custard tart with mixed fruit
cassata gelato
mixed berry and cream tart
mini ricotta cannoli
large ricotta cannoli
almond biscuit
three lattes
three babycinos

the gelato was especially good, a festive riot of hazelnuts, candied fruit, chocolate shavings and dramatic swirls of pistachio paste. good thing they were out of pink for the day; the kid was easily swayed.

still, it was the superlush ricotta cannoli that came home with me, four in a shiny brown box, along with a chocolate custard horn and a napoli biscuit and a fat schnitzel roll.

this is not your regular breaded cutlet on fluffy white buttered bread. behold: schnitzel, yes, and then roasted cherry tomatoes, eggplant, fontina, mozzarella, artichoke, rocket and prosciutto (though you could choose one with salami), in a chewy-soft roll.

i ate it, with a cup of darjeeling tea, for a late lunch, and it sat in my stomach well into the evening, when plans were already afoot for a return visit.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 21 August 2007 at 5:25 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, ice cream, lunch

ah! what is this thing? with its topping of dark crumbs?

after a fun 20 minutes at kinko’s, i cut across oncoming (pedestrian) traffic along the footpath, to peer into the window of the bourke street bakery’s broadway satellite, just to see. and here was something new! because the labels were all a-hither, i had to step inside to ask what it was. and then because i was already inside, i had to buy it.

behold: the chocolate mousse and raspberry tart. the gritty innercity cousin (with the milky soft heart) of the zumbo and lumiere chocolate-raspberry tarts, previously documented.

raspberry chocolate and me go way back. it was the summer of nellicent’s graduation from northwestern, and we spent the days with the backs of our knees slick with sweat, hanging around downtown chicago. the tourist brochure from our hotel had a coupon in it for a welcome gift from marshall field’s, the historic chicago department store, and we took advantage, really we did. day after day we would show up at the visitors’ center, coupons in hand, and be like, “oh! what a lovely surprise, to be getting this giftbag with a little box of chocolates inside.”

the chocolates were frangos, and commonly mint, but one day, there was a red box which held a raspberry variety. these were small blocks of chocolate that just melted away on our tongues. the raspberry flavour was bewitching.

and of course, it is “flavour”. a distinctively un-raspberry taste that you know to be “raspberry” because the package is red, and says r-a-s-p-b-e-r-r-y. and you crave it anyway, and years later, you discover that the raspberry syrup they use in starbucks is a pretty good approximation of a raspberry frango, when squirted into a hot chocolate.

this is not like a frango. beneath the dark chocolate crumbs is a lush chocolate mousse. beneath the mousse is a layer of squishy, tart raspberries. the pastry shell is flaky, rather than biscuity, and the whole thing — this tiny bouquet of contrasting textures — is so extremely delicious that i keep nudging it with my fork, eating it one small piece at a time, until it is all gone. it certainly makes a night of saving print-ready PDFs infinitely more pleasant. those crumbs… ingenious.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 19 August 2007 at 4:09 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, chocolate

the sydney design trail continues. today, singapore girl met me, half and hour late, because that’s how long it took for her bus to inch its way forward between the broadway shopping center and the queen victoria building. apparently it was following a slow-moving dumptruck traveling in the bus lane all the way. why did the bus driver not overtake? why did the girl not get off the bus? and walk??? it certainly would’ve been quicker. but these are questions which will forever remain unanswered. upstairs at the QVB, workshopped awaited us.

this showcase of emerging australian designers included all manner of curvy plywood chairs, whimsical pendant lamps, and chocolate-covered cheese. yes! bizarro! under a plexiglass case were sculptural hemispheres of gorgonzola, goat cheese and a washed rind cheese, covered in dark, milk or white chocolate. you could even buy them at the chocolate shop downstairs, which i did not, because, um, weird, and also, i was far more interested in the shop’s selection of teja — peruvian milk caramel enrobed in chocolate — that i’d recently read about in “good living“.

i never go upstairs at the QVB, but because we happened to be there, we stumbled upon the amazing, well-stocked boutique of sydney fashion designer, alistair trung. it was the neat row of colourful cloven-toed sneakers stretching all the way to the back of the shop that initially caught my eye, but once we were inside, we were mesmerised by the collection of dramatic necklaces and scarves, each of which, according to singapore girl, was equivalent to two weeks’ rent. the shoes, though, were a hundred bucks, and what can you get for $100 these days? ok, so my current pair of sneakers — pink plimsoles — were $6 from the sportsgirl bargain bin, and my other current pair — navy blue jack purcells — were $50, but both have holes worn through their soles, and they let the rain in, and so i need new sneakers now, dammit.

but did i need these $100 sneakers? with their grungy print of chunky misshappen numbers, white on black? oh how i miss grunge! oh how i loved these shoes! and their inventive fastening mechanism of thick thread and metal tabs. and their secret inner lining of soft khaki cotton. and the specialised cloven-toe socks with the same numeric print, except white on pink, for an extra $15.

what i needed was to leave the shop. we walked through the park and partway up the horrible bit of oxford street to object gallery for a strange little show of contemporary craft — multi-eyed monster potato heads shaped in glass; plastic plates covered in cheery fabric and stuck to a wall; a vast expanse of lace curtain cut from black rubber; ceramic rope… and then we had to break for a light lunch.

we are not girls who know restraint, necessarily, but we knew we must save room for afternoon tea at patisserie lumiere, just tripping distance from object, and something else i had come across in “good living” — the most useful of newspaper supplements, no?

faced with a multi-level case of choux this and danish that, and a kaleidoscope of pretty tarts, it was like being in zumbo! we were poised to order at the counter, but were shooed to a table for proper service.

eschewing the plump and seductive paris brest (filled with hazelnut creme, and i think you know how i like a creme filling), i picked the chocolate tart, handsomely goldleafed. it was crisp chocolate-biscuity shell, meltaway chocolate filling, and a secret layer of squishy raspberries hidden within. truly, it was the gilt-edged eastern suburbs cousin of zumbo’s envie tart, and very delicious too. singapore girl couldn’t decide between the pristine meringues sandwiched with chocolate and the glistening raspberry tart, so she had both. it was our plan to discuss the issue of $100 japanese sneakers over tea, but by the end of it, nothing had been resolved (because we discussed anything but), and i was now concerned that buying cloven-toed shoes would mean i would need to invest in a whole new supply of appropriate hoisery. also, my head was having issues with the sudden burst of chocolate into my bloodstream.

we caught the express bus back to the city, so that she could go back to studying for her PhD in speech pathology, and so that i could go look at those shoes — my shoes — again.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 10 August 2007 at 10:53 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, chocolate, shoping

sometimes you see her. you know nothing about her, not even her name, but she stands there so demurely, sweetly even, and you have to find out more. maybe you turn to the man watching over her, and ask. he screws up his face as he tries to remember the sum of her parts.

“coffee sticky rice,” he said “lemon creme, blood orange jelly…” honestly, he had me at the sticky rice; i may even have whimpered. but i left her behind. and then the regret set in.

i was back the next day — we’re talking adriano zumbo of course — because i really wanted a chorizo-olive baguette for lunch, but when i saw her glowing behind the glass, it was clear that she had won me over. not the thing with the apricots and apples, rolled in white chocolate and pistachios; not even the giant green macaron sandwiched with berries and basil-lime creme could sway me.

in the quiet afternoon, i worked my way through the layers: the blood orange jelly was intensely tart, and adorned with a flutter of tiny petals; the lemon creme felt full and fat on my tongue, and then dissipated completely — a wonderful mystery; there was a curious layer which seemed to be a spongy coconut foam; and a thin layer of coffee-ish jelly almost like the coffee agar agar from my childhood; and then the sticky rice…

which, meh, was my least favourite bit. it wasn’t creamy as i expected: the rice grains were a little al dente, and the stuff surrounding it foamy rather than lush. tchk.

what was lush, was the lemon creme. i could eat bowls of this. because it is hard to isolate this pale yellow layer from the others. i tasted each layer on its own, and then paired with each of the others. i tried to make the lemon creme last, but it kept gliding into each little spoonful i took from the glass.

so next on the list, i suppose, is the brioche donut filled with lemon creme. and here i was thinking i should cut down on the zumbo trips. anyway. i did get the chorizo baguette as well, so that should do me for the rest of the week.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 9 August 2007 at 5:24 pm

permalink | filed under cake

why is there no apostrophe in bakers delight? are they saying that what bakers do, is delight?

well, i guess i’d buy that. i’ve been delighted by some of the white yeasty things that appear on the racks of this franchise bakery chain. somewhat less delightful is the discrepancy between quality (and size!) of buns from one outlet to another. for example, the cheesymite scrolls from the bakers delight in albury are twice the size of the ones from the surry hills mall (and most of metropolitan sydney, i imagine; must be the good country air). and what about when a particular bun is completely missing from a shop? most undelightful indeed.

thing is, i first caught a glimpse of the chocolate mud scone in the display case of the balmain bakers delight, and oh what plans i had for it! i was going to smother it with whipped cream and sliced strawberries. however, when i did actually buy one, it was from the outlet at broadway shopping centre, and i was ravenous, and in the company of equally hungry kid and boy. we split it three ways, cold, from the bag, and wondered at how far this austere scottish bread had come. it was an impressive dark brown, rich with cocoa and a riot of chocolate chips. oh what plans i had for it!!

and then eventually i did have cream and strawberries in the fridge, and i walked up the street — gleeful — to the balmain branch to find no chocolate mud scones. my plans were in disarray! i thought maybe they had sold out, due to deliciousness, but no. i went by several more times, and it was as if they had never been there.

and y’know, maybe they hadn’t: maybe i had imagined the whole thing! maybe they are only sold in the bakers delight at broadway, because that is where deborah bought the one that she thoughtfully brought me on sunday.

and everything went according to plan: warmed up in the microwave, split and slathered in whipped cream and sliced strawberries, and then — an afterthought — more cream and more strawberries. truly, i was delighted.

but the kid made her dad lick the cream off before she would touch hers. is there an age group in which things are too delicious? because she’s in it.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 7 August 2007 at 4:33 pm

permalink | filed under cake, chocolate, kid

the first thing counterboy said to me as i stepped into zumbo this morning was, “why haven’t you been blogging?”. to which i might have mumbled something about being busy. i dunno.

i don’t remember so much of last week. i know there was a crazy deadline that had lurched and hiccupped over the weekend, and then into the week itself, where corrections and adjustments were still being made an hour before it was due wherever it was going. and then a large bunch of flowers showed up on my doorstep the following evening. and then, um…

i met my aunt for a devonshire tea in a foodhall in chatswood, where the scones were warmed in the microwave before being plonked on a plate with two little squirts of cream-in-a-can and two tiny foil-sealed packs of kraft strawberry jam. that’ll learn us to get scones at a muffin place, although really, the scones were the best thing on the tray. she paid for morning tea, as she is wont to, and then she paid for dimsum as well. and right at the end, she handed me a box of home-made yam cake. good value, my aunt.

i met a friend (really, my sister’s friend) for brunch in newtown, and although i couldn’t persuade her to have tacos at 10am (plus, they weren’t actually open yet), we didn’t do too badly at the cafe across from the cinema, with buckwheat pancakes, coconut-infused mascarpone, maple syrup, and half the fruit in a small greengrocer. oh, and a side of bacon. she is from singapore; we spoke singlish. it was great.

i became addicted to the pre-packed exotic mushrooms at harris farm. shiitake, enoki, shimeji, and oyster mushrooms, quickly sauteed in sesame oil with rather a lot of chopped garlic and whatever asian greens are handy, poured over jasmin rice — what a dinner it made… twice! i had it first with flowering choi sum one night, and then addressed my addiction head on by buying more mushrooms to have with broccoli and baby buk choy soon after). you don’t need any more seasoning than a spoon of sea salt: the mushrooms flavour everything.

i went to the organic markets and bought just short of half a kilo of salty french-churned butter.

i found myself stepping, too casually, too often, into the jewelbox that is adriano zumbo: a mandarin macaron one day, a brioche stuffed with custard and mixed berries the next. or was it both on the same day? and another the next? i lose count.

oh! also, my sister got married, not that you’d know, since she hasn’t been blogging either.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 6 August 2007 at 8:42 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, kitchen, lunch, nellie, snacks, werk

today was all blue skies and fluffy clouds, perfect for a cupcake excursion! we caught a bus and a train, crossed two bridges, and walked out into the sunshine at kirribilli markets. we wandered through the maze of stalls, not really looking too hard, and then we found it: chocolate suze’s biscuit (and cupcake) stand, as advertised.

there were sample jars filled with little nuggets of shortbread, warmed by the sun, and a sign which told me to try as many as i wanted, so i did: white chocolate and cranberry shortbread, cranberry and pistachio, macadamia, ginger… there were as many different kinds of biscotti, including an intriguing pear and cardamon specimen. there was a shameless display of well-frosted cupcakes, overwhelmingly pink and copiously sprinkled. and there was chocolate suze, who i had never met before today, and is yet more proof that the innernet is my friend.

but we cannot stand around making small talk about butter; maeve is not so easily distracted when there are pink cupcakes about. with pink dragees! and that boy is going to get it! but he didn’t. we took the cupcake to the park, plonked ourselves down in the shade of the harbour bridge, and then she dug out all the dragees and ate whatever frosting she hadn’t licked off along the way. as an afterthought, she ate about half the cake too.

she was kind enough to offer me a nibble now and again, so i was able to ascertain that it was all sugary icing and buttery cake, and sometimes that is all i ask of it. and so it was that after a play in the playground, and another meander through the market, and a greasy gozleme on the bare patch of grass in the middle of it all, and a free facepaint in the likeness of a pink kitten, we ended up back at the cupcakes so that i could buy one of my very own, and bring it home with me.

“that is such a delicious and moist cupcake,” i gushed. “does it have a lot of butter in it?”

suze smiled a wicked smile. “yes,” she said, “and you don’t want to know how much.”

i thought i’d be eating it tonight, solace while i worked a crazy deadline. but an even crazier deadline has taken shape, making this evening just the calm before the storm. and so here it sits, biding its time, waiting for the morning when it will kill me a buttery death. it will be great!

posted by ragingyoghurt on 28 July 2007 at 10:48 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, kid, werk

i am about to go watch “america’s next top model” with a cup of tea (green, vanilla) and a biscuit (macaron, rose), which is a grand way to spend a friday night with kid sleeping and boy absent.

last tuesday, as we parked the grocery-laden pram outside adriano zumbo patissier, a yelled-out welcome made its way onto the street: “hello, ragingyoghurt!” it’s nice, no? when the boy behind the counter knows your name? nevermind that your name isn’t actually “ragingyoghurt”…

we entered the shop, and my eyes automatically swung to 2 o’clock, where the macaron usually hang out. except, there were no macaron! not a single one. “where are all the little coloured biscuits?” i asked, perplexed.

turns out the entire zumbo workshop had been wiped out with the killer flu over the weekend. charlie the counterboy had been making pastries to keep the counter stocked. but no pink biscuits for us. the kid, who’d been chanting a mantra of “pink-biscuit-pink-biscuit”, was easily placated with a raisin snail. and i… i finally got a chance to try the cheeky charlie.

a figure eight of a danish, topped with chopped strawberries and pistachios. the surprise is, the brioche feuilletine has a ribbon of sticky red jam running through it, which makes your cheeks tingle with intense strawberriness.

i’d been eyeing this for weeks, but there was always something more enticing than a danish along the counter. plus i didn’t think i could ask charlie himself for a pastry named in his honour. tuesday, an extra countergirl was there to help me out.

thanks, countergirl!

anyway. i thought you might be interested to see the kind of more-enticing-something that’s been keeping me from surprise danishes.

the merry-go-round, from two tuesdays ago: like a regular strawberry custard tart, only crazier. behold the macaron biscuit topped with a tiny cube of turkish delight. beneath the ring of strawberries, a great dollop of creme patissiere — as you’d expect — but within this, a secret core of lychee mousse. predictably, the kid was only interested in the pink biscuit, so after i bribed her with it, she left me — and the merry-go-round — to our own devices. i took it to bed with me that night, and when i was done with it… well, you know how it is.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 27 July 2007 at 9:24 pm

permalink | filed under cake, kid

friday, two fridays ago, it rained and rained and rained. though not while we made our way to waffle on to break fast. i know purists — and monsieur waff — would strongly recommend the plain waffle, adorned with nothing more than a dusting of powdered sugar. but. the waffle with maple syrup is an amazing thing. the air around you tingles with a mapley, syrupy aura, and your teeth go soft. since before we left sydney, i’d been telling the kid about how we could go have waffles in melbourne. she was happy to play along, perched up high on a barstool, with her waffle in a brown paper bag; the waffleman thought it might be easier to eat that way. “are you leaving today?” he asked, because he remembered that we are from sydney. “tomorrow,” we replied. there was a sadness in the air. i was already a regular. “you should move to melbourne,” he said, “you will love it.”

as the kid slowed down at the halfway mark, we folded the bag over, popped it into my backpack, and headed off on another adventure. while the boy made a pilgrimage to the fred williams room at the ian potter centre, maeve and i wandered through the indigenous collection, picking out our favourite shell-studded, feather-adorned, hand-woven satchels; making faces back at the totems; looking for native animals hidden in the dots. there was a tale which accompanied a little family of colourful woven dolls:

a woman was out in the bush looking for food for her children. two men killed her. when they noticed that milk was leaking from her breasts, they realised that she must have children nearby. they found their way back to her camp, where they discovered her two children, and killed them too.

tops.

it was heaps more fun ambling down by the yarra, past the australian poster annual. in the shadow of the circus oz tent and a creaky old ferris wheel. we took a ride on “the grand carousel”, a small scuffed thing with a ring of tired animals jerking up and down and a soundtrack composed of the whirr and hum of machinery.

we walked on: the boy led the way up the green slopes into the botanic gardens. and it was fun for a while, even though it was bitingly cold, and even when it started to rain, because by then we were right by the tropical greenhouse, and i knew that inside it would be warm, if a little moist. the kid finished off the rest of her waffle surrounded by steamy exotic vegetation. and then we stepped outside because we thought the rain was easing.

but it tricked us.

it got heavier and heavier, and i got wetter and grumpier: why was there no place to take shelter? by the time i spotted the visitors’ centre and stomped off towards it, my shoulders were sodden, my hair saturated. i fingered the plastic rain ponchos in the garden shop, and gazed longingly at the fat sandwiches and wedges of cake behind glass in the cafeteria. truly, i would’ve been happy to stay.

but the boy had his sights set on a walk beside port phillip bay, and was leaning out the glass doors in the direction of the st kilda tram. fortunately, i had no such desire to slosh around the outdoors for an unspecified time, so me and the kid caught a tram in the other direction, and headed underground.

there is a cute little boutique in the pedestrian tunnel under flinders street, where cute skirts can be found. sadly, everything on the rack was either an 8 or a 14. so we went next door to sticky, floor to ceiling, wall to wall zines and other scraps of paper, and a desk with badge machines where you can sit and press out your own buttons. one of us came away with a little button with a black cat on it; one of us bought too many zines.

and we climbed the dark stairs back up to the street to find sunlight! and life! and the lord of the fries! twas a lovely picnic indeed, on the tramstop bench, with a crate of hot chips smothered in brown vinegar and tomato sauce, and two tiny forks.

and then you know, one thing led to another, and suddenly, one night later, we weren’t in melbourne anymore. we were in a stone-cold motel room in tumut, discovering that the advertised “free cable in your room!” was three sports channels. even the ones that on the handwritten tv menu were assigned to “lifestyle channel” and “fox-something” (not “fox sport”), had since been switched over to something with a football game on it.

we read the interesting takeaway menu that i’d picked up in reception, for a local chinese restaurant. there was an entire section titled “sweet & sour”.

and really, for a while we considered regional chinese for dinner. but then we thought that maybe a counter meal in a pub, or a slap-up feed in the bistro of the RSL club would be more “authentic”. the tumut bowling club is a big, concrete bunker, the inside of which is lined in spectacular carpet of a glitzy pattern you just don’t see anymore. we followed the corridor around several bends to the packed dining room, and it became clear from the laminated menu on the counter listing such classic australian cuisine as “honey king prawns” and “mongolian lamb”, that the tumut RSL bistro was in fact a regional chinese restaurant, albeit with a small selection of steaks and chips tucked away in the extended menu.

we were not really disappointed, but it was very hard to choose. in the end, we had sweet and sour pork — not as lurid and padded out with pineapple and celery as i’ve enjoyed in other country towns, garlic king prawns, and mixed vegetables with cashew nuts. the order took about an hour to arrive, during which time i tried without success to keep the kid away from my lemon, lime and bitters. and then minutes later — well, maybe 20 minutes; we are not swine — it was all gone.

and now, looking down the barrel of a surprise annual report to be designed in five days, these golden memories of melbourne are flashing before my eyes, taunting me, like a cavalcade of well-fried chips.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 21 July 2007 at 10:15 pm

permalink | filed under around town, boy, cake, kid, snacks, trip

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