That's Noice!

A couple of weeks ago I headed to Brasserie Bread to take part in their Baking with Brioche workshop. Why did I go? Well, it all came down to one single tweet: something about sticky cinnamon buns. Yep, that’s all it takes to get me to sign up for a 3 hour, $130 course.

In my rush to get there on Thursday night I completely forgot to take my camera, but luckily my shiny new phone is capable of taking photos. (Oh, technology these days!).

First up, we used some pre-prepared dough to create a collection of nommy items (including the sticky cinnamon buns, not pictured). Here they are pre resting and baking.

Our ‘nommy items’ also included our dinner: a salmon coulibiac (a Russian fish pie typically made with salmon or sturgeon, hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms and dill, baked in a pastry shell.) Of course, the salmon was wrapped in brioche, continuing the theme of the workshop.

It was, without even the slightest bit of exaggeration, the best salmon-based meal I’ve ever had. And, yes, I had already starting eating my meal before I took photos of it. I’d never make it as a food blogger.

Once dinner was over we went back into the kitchen to make our own dough from scratch. At this point you get to see exactly how much butter goes into brioche. And it’s, um, a lot. In between working the dough, we take a short tour of the bakery, and watch our creations get put into a massive oven for baking.

Exciting, no? Well, you’ll have to trust me that it is. Just a little bit.

At the end of the three hours we get to go home with not only the skills we’ve picked up, but also days worth of brioche for the eating.

Plus a little recipe hand out the includes the recipe for the Sticky Cinnamon Buns. What more could you ask for?

Brasserie Bread hold a range of baking workshops at their cafe in Banksmeadow, NSW. You can find out more information on their website.

I was in Melbourne for a short trip last week, and thought while I was there I would have to find a cupcake bakery to visit for a review, as we are running out of Sydney bakeries ;)

Little Cupcakes was closest to where I was staying, so it was the chosen one.

I found the super cute little store tucked away in a side street. The cupcakes look fabulous all neatly lined up in the display window. They have regular and mini sized cupcakes. Couldn’t wait to try one, had been a few months since my last cupcake!

I bought the Strawberry, Red Velvet, White Choc + Raspberry and Vanilla. I should have known better than to wait… should have gotten a picture and had a little taste straight away but after a long tram trip in the warmish weather they didn’t fair so well. Such a shame, they were beautifully packages in a little box and a cute little carry bag.

I wasn’t about to let appearances put me off and despite looking like a jumbled mess, I could still taste each of the icing flavours and cakes. They were delish! Icing had wonderful flavours and wasn’t too sweet. The cakes were lovely and fresh, not dry at all. The White Choc and Raspberry one was divine, with a lovely raspberry centre.

Little cupcakes, as must visit. But i’d suggest stuffing them in your face asap ;)

Little Cupcakes
Shop 7 Degraves St and TG06 Goldsbrough Lane Melbourne.

Have you come across The Cupcake Courier?

I’ve been eyeing them off for a good year or two and have always been put off by the $60 price tag. I already own a multitude of cake/cupcake containers, but I’ve always wanted to upgrade to the real deal.

Last month the Cupcake Courier was on special for the bargain price of $40 so I ordered one before I remembered that I still had to make my car repayment for the month.

All I can say is that The Cupcake Courier has lived up to my expectations. I made a batch of cupcakes and lugged them to work this week and they arrived in pristine condition:

My cupcakes are usually more “pattycakes” than cupcakes, so a bit smaller than normal cupcakes. Even so, the cupcakes weren’t damaged in any way.

5 stars for The Cupcake Courier!

If you want cupcakes that are worth driving through torrential rain for, then The Cupcake Factory is your place.

Leigh and I have been drooling at the web site for months (literally) and we finally made the pilgrimage on a sopping wet Saturday to downtown Drummoyne for cupcake goodness.

The shopfront is small with barely enough room for 2 adults and 3 kids to huddle aroud the display window trying to decide which cupcakes to take home. There are at least 15 flavours to choose from and the shop is decorated in heaps of cupcake-themed goodies. They even have a cupcake bouquet made out of mini-cupcakes – really wished I’d snapped a photo of it so I can try to make something similar.

The service was friendly and very accommodating of wide-eyed cupcake fanatics! There really were SO MANY flavours to choose from: chocolate drizzle, malteser, strawberry, white chocolate, passionfruit, double chocolate, rocky road, vanilla, caramel, cookies and cream, jaffa and so many more than I can remember.

And look at the cupcake/icing ratio!

That is the most amazing cupcake/icing ratio I’ve seen outside of my kitchen.

Here’s the cookies and cream cupcake, one of the few that sat still long enough for me to photograph it:

Cupcakes are $3.00 to $4.00 and mini cupcakes are available for $1.00. You can get a box of a dozen mini cupakes for $12.00.

The cakes themselves taste home-made and the icing is the most amazing icing I have ever experienced in a retail cupcake. Most of the flavours are very rich – I could only eat half a cupcake at a time – but stunning. Presentation is spot-on, too!

The Cupcake Factory
Shop 5, 147 Victoria Road (Entrance on Edwin Street)
Drummoyne
Phone: (02) 9719 8737

Don’t forget to check out our list of Australian cupcake bakeries!

It was freezing cold when I was cruising by the sleepy mountain town of Katoomba, but I knew I had to stop by and check out Cupid’s Cupcakes. Rumour had it that these cupcakes were worth driving from Sydney for.

The shop itself it quite small – only a couple of tables inside to enjoy a coffee or hot choc with your cupcakes of choice. They had a special offer of buy 10, get 2 free, so I splurged and bought a dozen large cupcakes for $35.00.

There are a huge variety of flavours, which seem to change daily – jaffa, cookies and cream, devonshire tea, lemon meringue, rainbow sprinkles, orange, strawberry, mocha, passionfruit, choc mint… My favourite was the raspberry and white chocolate, a surefire combination to win me over every time.

I drove these cupcakes 2 hours’ west to my sister’s and we scoffed them all up within 12hrs of me arriving at her house:

All of the cupcakes are a mud cake base with frosting on top. Some of the cakes were a teensy bit dry but the frostings were all delicious. The decorations are simple, allowing more room for frosting – the best part!

When I drove past Katoomba again the following day, I couldn’t help myself and bought another dozen cupcakes. Michelle and Phillip, the owners of the shop are incredibly friendly and offer all sorts of information about the cupcakes and try to help making the difficult job of choosing flavours a bit easier.

The store is currently for sale and all I can do is hope that the cupcakes stay the way they with the new owners. It’s hard to find a cupcakery that has a nice balance of aesthetics, flavour and quality and Cupid’s Cupcakes is one of the best.

And yes, definitely worth driving all the way from Sydney!

Cupid’s Cupcakes
30-32 Katoomba Street, Katoomba
(02) 4782 1244

I saw a write up in the local paper about a new cafe that had opened up that specialised in waffles, sounded delish!I loved the story behind how the husband and wife team started their business.

Today I took Mum to check out Jas my Waffles in Rooty Hill. I’ll have to be honest and say I don’t think I have actually had freshly made waffles that weren’t from a packet or frozen.

We drooled over the mouth watering menu, having trouble deciding what to try. They have a great range of sweet and savoury waffles.

I went for fruits of the forest single serve, $6.95. 1/2 a waffle, mixed fruit, caramel sauce and one scoop of New Zealand Natural ice cream. Mum was game and went for the full serve, double the waffley goodness for $11.95. I also had to try a caramel churros, $2.50

NOM NOM NOM! It was awesome, the waffles was warm, crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy inside. Paired with a scoop of vanilla and the berries *sigh* yum!

While I was waiting for mum to try and find room for her ginormous helping. I was watching them make their waffles-to-go. Small waffles on a stick, a bit like a pluto pup..sweet or savoury.

I got myself a ham and cheese, $2.50. Just to see what it was like. It was a roll of thick ham stuffed with mozzerella cheese, cooked inside yummy waffle..on a stick.

*faint* Heaven on a stick, honestly..it was so good.

Service was great, as was the coffee.

I am looking forward to taking manpet and the kids there to try it out, tomorrow too soon?

Jas my Waffles

Shop 6, Rooty Hill Rd North, Rooty Hill