Brendan Dewar Patisserie - Take 2

Okay, I am back at Brendan Dewar Patisserie in St Ives. This time it was to pick up a White Chocolate Cheesecake I had pre-ordered for a double birthday celebration.

Brendan Dewar himself!

A few days before the pick up, when I placed the order over the phone, Brendan was the one who took my order. After I identified who I was speaking to, I expressed my desire to meet him.

When I arrived, I asked to speak to Brendan. It was lovely to finally meet him. I expressed my thanks to him as someone from his patisserie had put my initial blog post link  (Brendan Dewar Patisserie May 2012) on the Brendan Dewar Patisserie Facebook page back in June this year. My first post was in May and I started to notice how popular the post was. After a bit of googling, I finally figured out that the source of most of the traffic was from their Facebook page. I was chuffed!

Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio

Another tick on my 'to do' list while in Melbourne! I finally get to visit Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio. Walking into the store, I felt like I was in Dessert Wonderland. The staff were so friendly, attentive and happy to wait for the people milling around to make a decision on their selection.

There were trays of new cakes and chocolate creations to sample, what a great idea!! Not ready to be on sale but definitely a very attractive offering to the public who walk in and are surrounded by glorious, beautiful and utterly visually appealing desserts.

There is so much to take in when I walked into the patisserie. It took me a while to have a real good look at everything on display and the staff were so gracious and said I could take as many photos as I wanted. How nice, and I did appreciate it.

Black Star Pastry

This place has been on my 'hit list' for some time now. I am so glad to have finally found the opportunity to check it out! I met DD here for coffee and cake one morning and eventually came back in the afternoon (on my way home) to get the very famous Strawberry and watermelon cake. That was eventually my dessert that evening!

Black Star Pastry is such a hip place. It is always full and in peak hours, the queue to order can be quite long. I can see that the queues are not putting anyone off. Everyone is willing to wait patiently. My guess is the regulars know how good this place is!

For my morning tea, I had the Orange cake with Persian fig and quince. Yummy! Moist and truly delicious! On top of that, very pretty to look at. DD had the Frangipane tart. Apparently this is his favourite tart.

Orange cake with persian fig

Frangipane tart

For my evening dessert, I had the mouth watering Strawberry and watermelon cake. I was initially skeptical on how good this cake would taste. But my skepticism was blown out of the window. What a fantastic cake!!!!!! The burst of flavours just made every mouthful so wonderful...can I wax enough lyrical about this?!?!

Strawberry and watermelon cake

The slices of fresh watermelon, pistachio and fragrant rose petals make this cake unique and utterly delicious. It is fresh, light and fragrant. I think I have said enough about this cake. You should try it and see if I am exaggerating about it.

Christopher The is a truly gifted pattisier. Wow! No wonder Black Star Pastry has been rated as one of the Top 10 Pastry Shops in Sydney.



Black Star Pastry
277 Australia Street
Newtown
NSW
Website: www.blackstarpastry.com.au

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Brendan Dewar Patisserie

I visited this patisserie a few weeks ago but did not get a chance to blog about it until now.

Brendan Dewar Patisserie is located in the suburb of St. Ives. I first heard of it in an article from the Good Living sometime last year. Made a mental note to visit it but only had the chance to do so recently.

My friend's son IF had a birthday coming up which we were going to have an immediate family gathering to celebrate it. So I took the opportunity to take a visit and see what creations I could find there.

Visually, the cakes and macarons look so appealing. Beautiful colours which do catch the eye and some interesting combination of flavours in some of the cakes (small and large varieties).

For the birthday cake, I selected a freshly baked Ménage a Trios. It was beautifully decorated with macarons. It was a dark, white and milk chocolate mousse cake with a biscuit Joconde base. Verdict: it was a hit at the dinner for IF. Everyone loved it, including me. When you first start eating the cake, it was light in texture and creamy because of the different chocolates. So you think you can eat quite a bit of it as it was so light! But it is quite misleading because the richness of the chocolate hits you as you finish the portion. It was delicious!

Menage a Trios

Because there were so many other cakes to try, I decided to get a slice of another interesting one for my afternoon tea (very naughty of me I must say!). I chose the Loire which was a Caramel mousse with caramelised pear on a biscuit Joconde base. It had the sweet (from the pear) and salty (from the caramel) combination which was interesting and I found it refreshing to have a dessert different to what I am normally used to.

A slice of Loire

Brendan Dewar Patisserie is located in the St Ives shopping village. It is very popular with the locals. So if you are in the area, I would recommend you visit this delightful patisserie. All cakes are made fresh daily.

Have fun!

Brendan Dewar Patisserie
Shop 119, 66 Mona Vale Road,
St Ives Shopping Village
St Ives
NSW 2075
Website: www.brendandewarpatisserie.com.au


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Patisse

Patisse is located in Waterloo on Young Street. After our lunch at Cafe Sopra (see Fratelli Fresh and Cafe Sopra) we walked around Dank Street. I saw Sonoma Bakery which had quite a few patrons. The bread looked delicious.

We browsed the various art galleries, there were some interesting painting and metal works. After all the browsing and walking it was time for our coffee hit and dessert. We went to Patisse and loved looking at all the colourful desserts on display.

Some of the tempting desserts!

What colourful macarons!

Meringues galore - they were for sale too! 

We saw Vincent Gadan, the Executive Chef, walk through the cafe. He does strut like a Frenchman, that's for sure!

So what did we end up having? I chose the Pistachio and rose cake and CM chose the Berry buchette with beetroot brownie. Both were very delicious but it did fill us up quite quickly.

Berry Buchette

Pistachio and rose cake

P/S we bought some macarons home and they were nice too!

Patisse
Shop G01, PYD Building
197 Young Street
Waterloo
NSW 2017
Website: www.patisse.com.au

Dolcetti

Dolcetti is a pasticceria that I have wanted to visit since I saw an episode on Italian Food Safari last year. The show was shown on SBS. I really enjoyed the series; I am a fan of Maeve O'Meara and her food safari television shows. In that particular episode, there was a segment on making nougat in a small pasticceria in Melbourne. It was called Dolcetti.

So I made a concerted effort to track down the location and I decided to visit it on a cold and wet Saturday morning when I was recently in Melbourne. I took the tram to the Queen Victoria's Market, browsed through it and walked up Victoria Street. I found the store and decided to have my breakfast while I was there.

The quaint teapots handing in the front window

It is quaintly decorated, small and unassuming. What a lovely set of goodies all presented in the display counter. They have lovely Italian biscuits, beautiful pastries, brioches, home made jams and relishes. The stack of soft nougats with different flavours looked so inviting.

Pastries

Amaretti - Italian biscuits! Don't they look yummy?

Brioche

I was privileged to meet Marianna DiBartolo (pastry chef and owner) who was kind enough to allow me to take some pictures of the treats. I had the Dolcetti pastry with coffee for breakfast. The pastry was just so delicious, it had pistachio paste, fresh pear and strawberries. The pastry was light and flaky. I thought the pastry was spot on!

My delicious pastry!

There were so many types of nougat to choose so I bought a few different flavours. There was raspberry with white chocolate, sour cherry with white chocolate, traditional almond with milk chocolate, nuts and chocolate (I think it is called baci). Imagine that I brought them back to Sydney!

Variety of soft nougat

The raspberry nougat was popular at a lunch I had at my friend CW's. I can't wait to try out the others.

If I could have tried out everything at Dolcetti, I would have. Please drop by this patisserie, you won't regret it!

Dolcetti
223 Victoria Street
West Melbourne
VIC 3003
(03) 9328 1688
Website: http://www.dolcetti.com.au/

Sweetness the Patisserie

Sweetness the Patisserie - I first read about this shop about 2 years ago in an article in the Good Living. The shop is located in Epping and that perked my interest.  The article focused on the nougat and marshmallows made onsite. It is not often you find artisan shops in the North West of Sydney.  They are typically located in the city or close to the city.

The store sign

When I do visit the store, I love looking at the range of sweet treats available. The fact that they are all hand made onsite makes them all the more attractive. I have previously mentioned Sweetness the Patisserie when I blogged about the Castle Hill Farmers Market. I thought it appropriate to dedicate a singular post just to the store and its founder Gena Karpf. Gena Karpf founded the store in circa 2008. It has gone from strength to strength and has expanded its range to not only include marshmallows, nougat and various biscuits but to also include fruit coconut ice, toffees, gummies, fudge, truflles and so forth.

One shelf laden with the freshly baked biscuits

Rocky Road Bonbons

Some more yummy goodies!

The very famous marshmallows - I love them!

The open kitchen where the treats are made

Recent fine food awards won by Sweetness the Patisserie

The declaration by Michel Roux about the marshmallows

The last picture is taken from the main window of the store. There is a lot of back reflection so it is very hard to read it. What it says is 'The best marshmallows I have ever eaten. I loved every mouthful'....Michel Roux

If Michel Roux loves them marshies, then I would expect almost anyone to love them too (that is if you have a sweet tooth).

Sweetness the Patisserie
38 Oxford Street
Epping
NSW 2121
Australia
Website: http://www.sweetness.com.au/