Ending the week on a sugar high, one of my favourite events every year for the Crave Food Festival is the Sugar Hit. This is where restaurants and hotels across Sydney put a dessert dish and a matching Brown Brothers dessert wine and open up their doors to diners from 9pm-11pm so that they can enjoy a sweet ending to their night for $20. Or you could be like me and enjoying a second, third or fourth dessert, I’m not judging! Here’s a sample of what’s on offer:

Azuma Kushiyaka – Sydney CBD

At Azuma Kushiyaki restaurant, at any lunch time chef Tetsuya could be the diner sitting next to you. In fact the first time I visited Azuma, he was sitting at a table across the room. Their kushiyaki (items grilled on skewers) are sublime but they also have a deft touch when it comes to desserts. Their Sugar Hit is a two tier Japanese lacquered box filled with lots of little tastes of Japan with traditional and modern Japanese desserts.

A selection of Eastern and Western-influenced desserts and sweets, created daily served with Brown Brothers Orange Muscat and Flora wine

There is a choice of green tea or Brown Brothers Orange Muscat and Flora wine and we opt to try both. The top layer of the sugar hit comprises of a Sake sample, a full sized green tea tiramisu where sponge fingers are generously soaked in shochu and the light cream and mascarpone layer is alternated with green tea. There is also a dark chocolate coated handmade chocolate filled with a nutty milk and dark praline and a little explosive surprise inside (pop rocks). There were also two petite butter cake bites filled with red beans and soaked in sake which I quite liked-and I’m not usually much of a sake drinker!

The second layer has a more traditional Japanese offering-anmitsu which I remember eating during the untenably hot Japanese summer. It is a mixture of sliced seasonal fruit, large bubble tea sized tapioca pearls, sweetened red beans, chewy shiratami rice dumplings coated in a kinako soybean powder (that looks like peanut powder and has a similarly nutty, sweet taste) finished off with a Japanese brown sugar syrup. It’s refreshing and chewy and I think back to my time warding off fatigue by eating this. And last but not least is the white sesame ice cream which is house made and tastes and has the lovely creamy texture of a rich egg custard based ice cream with the light smokiness of white sesame.

Catalina – Rose Bay

We drive up to Rose Bay’s Catalina and check out our fellow car park inhabitants. There are Porsches, Jaguars and Audis (and as a new driver I notice they are rather haphazardly parked across lines-I guess if you have one of those cars you need to show that you really park how you want!). We take a seat inside Catalina where the view of the lights reflects and sparkles on the dark, black water. Keen sailor Mr NQN whispers to me that the man sitting behind us owns one of the Sydney to Hobart winning super maxi yachts. My point? The crowd at Catalina is very chi chi indeed.

A slice of dark Valrhona chocolate and date tart with rose-petal ice-cream served with Brown Brothers Tawny Port

If you want to have a taste of a dessert at Catalina, their Sugar Hit is a nice introduction (although I have very fond memories of meals here B.B. Before Blog and it’s worth visiting for the savouries too). The dessert is a slice of dark Valrhona chocolate and date tart with rose-petal ice-cream with a glass of Brown Brothers Tawny Port. The tart is rich and gooey and the occasional medjool date imparts an even richer texture rather than a flavour against the dark Valrhona chocolate. The rose petal ice cream with texture from the rose petals is ambrosial and there is also some rose petal syrup lacing the tart. And the pairing with the Brown Brothers tawny port is excellent cleansing the palate when the tart gets too rich so that you’re eager to begin the chocolate feast again. This dessert is also on the regular menu for $19 so the sugar hit is a very good deal.

Hilton Hotel Glass Brasserie – Sydney CBD

The Hilton Hotel’s Glass restaurant by chef Luke Mangan seems to be buzzing with diners this Tuesday evening and we take a seat at the wine bottle lined room and have a look at the dessert offering. It’s actually a dessert on their regular menu although for the sugar hit it is presented in a different shape.

Milk chocolate bavarois, tonka bean creme brulee, caramel sorbet and salted beans served with Brown Brothers Patricia Noble Riesling

There is a two layered milk chocolate bavarois covered in a thin layer of sponge in a dome shape and there is also a layer of tonka creme brulee which is similar to vanilla bean and there is a slight hint of cinnamon in this moussey, light dessert too. It is topped with some toasted peanuts, silver leaf and milk chocolate curls and a slightly tangy caramel sorbet and a peanutty crumble. Mr NQN likes the Brown Brothers Patricia Noble Riesling wine here (although I’m driving so no drinkies for me!) with its many awards stamped on the label.

Inter Continental Cortile Lounge - Circular Quay

I seem to have made it to the Inter Continental’s Sugar Hit for the last few years in a row despite the constant battle for a parking spot nearby. The Sugar Hit is as always on the ground level Cortile lounge where there are high banquette seats to hide behind or tables, lounges and chairs. This year’s sugar hit is said to be a tribute to Spring with the use of blood orange.

Pistachio and bitter chocolate vacherin with blood orange custard served with Brown Brothers Moscato

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I’m on my second day at the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival and I’m not having a very successful morning. I had planned to to have some sort of breakfast but I slept in due to the repeated hitting of the snooze button due to the terribly comfortable bed and night blinds at the InterContinental which meant that my body doth resist the urge to wake as it believes, wrongly, that it is the middle of the night.

Harry Parr (left) and Sam Bompas (right)

I fly out of my room rushing and abandon all (flimsy) intentions to walk or catch a tram and catch a taxi to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The Masterclasses are held both here and at The Langham hotel and transport is provided between the two venues. The two Masterclasses that I specifically wanted to attend were of course Nigella Lawson but also Bompas & Parr. I have a strange relationship with jelly. Growing up my father worked as a food technologist for a company that made gelatine but they specialised in powdered gelatine that we never quite got to dissolve properly. So we had jelly pretty much every time we had dessert which drove my sister and I to quite loathe the stuff. “Jelly is not real dessert” we’d say. Cue several decades later and I’d find myself married to an absolute jelly fiend and I had somehow become again fascinated with the stuff. Enough to make several attempts on a underwater jelly cake and buy gelatine leaves by the bulk pack.

St Paul’s Cathedral jellies

So Dear Reader, take a seat next to me throughout this day of masterclasses! One thing that I didn’t quite expect when seeing Bompas and Parr, the jellymongers (aka jelly artists) was the posh voices coming out of Sam Bompas and Harry Parr. Sam is the more talkative of the two and the showman whilst Harry seems to be shyer member of the team. We do hear some sighs when Sam mentions a girlfriend. They’ve arrived in Australia from Britain where they’ve established themselves as doers of all sorts of weird and wobbly things with jelly (and yes they put “jellymongers” on their customs entrance form when entering Australia).

Harry shows a 3D model of St Paul’s Cathedral

They start the show by explaining how they started at London’s Borough Markets. Harry was an architect and Sam formerly a geographer and both former careers have helped them with their current vocation of jellymongers. Why jelly? The story goes that Harry held a dinner party attended by Sam. Harry spent many hours cooking the curries which people ate with a nonchalance but when they jelly was brought out, people became very excited. They brainstormed the idea in a pub and then approached the market organisers and we were promptly told to “get lost”. Undeterred they continued with their jelly love and made jelly at home. At the beginning they didn’t have any molds at all and used bedsheets and pillowcases to strain the mixtures.

How many things can you make into jelly? Let me count the ways…

Their focus is on proper jelly or fresh fruit jelly. With fresh fruit come a range of challenges such as balance and acidity. A fruit like pineapple has an enzyme called bromelain which is a flesh eating enzyme which can eat the gelatine in jelly which obviously is not ideal.

Showing expensive copper molds

The key to jelly is balance much like a cocktail. Harry begins to make a basic orange juice make jelly on a scale. They use 500g of water which is a good amount for four people and this requires 5 sheets of gelatin. And yes they only use leaf gelatin and warn us against using powdered gelatin as leaf gelatin will come up clearer and doesn’t have that animal smell. The higher the grade of gelatin the clearer the resulting jelly will be.

Sweet jelly requires quite a bit of sugar as it is served chilled and chilled items need to be sweeter. They explain this by using the example of the more pronounced sweetness of melted ice cream versus frozen. The history of jelly dates back before Christ and for centuries afterwards, jelly, particularly sweet jelly as it evolved, was considered a high end item for the wealthy as sugar was costly as was the gelatin itself and refrigeration.

Striped jelly made in mandarins

They also tried making jelly from scratch the medieval way. “It took 20 long hours and it still tasted of pig” Sam confesses. Henry the VIII also served gilded blancmange at dinners. Jelly molds used to be made out of wood from sycamore trees but then in the Georgian and Victorian eras molds started to be made in copper and metal. Copper is the best jelly mold material as it conducts heat very well although it is the costliest type of mold. One needs only use lukewarm water to unmold a jelly and conversely it sets quicker over an ice bath. Ceramic is the hardest type of mold to work with and requires lining with a loosening agent like a vegetable fat. One also needs to pour in almost set jelly so as not to dislodge the vegetable fat.

Flinders Street Station jelly

Harrys experience as an architect helps when developing molds in 3D which he does on the computer. While in Melbourne they recently made a mold of Flinders Street station made of Hendrick’s gin, rose and cucumber jelly. Jelly bridges, jelly wrestling launches and working with Heston Blumenthal and funeral jellies make up their days now. Funeral jellies are popular as Sam says it a good way to get alcohol in people! Their most notorious project was making “occult jams”  made using a speck of Princess Diana’s hair purchased on ebay as well as two other flavours: Absinthe and pineapple with sand from the Great Pyramids and plum and oak with wood from Lord Nelson’s ship.

Gold leaf jellies

They show us how to make a few types of jellies starting with a simple fruit juice jelly.They melt the gelatine sheets in water and juice directly on the induction stovetop as induction can heat to a very low temperature. With gas, they don’t recommended melting it directly but over a double boiler. They show us layered jellies made inside a scooped out mandarin (take the end of a teaspoon and hollow it out from the green end) layering it with orange jelly and white blancmange.

And despite  the fact that this isn’t supposed to be a tasting session, the Bompas & Parr boys pass around some jellies for us to taste-all quite alcoholic I might add! All of the recipes featured in these Masterclasses are given in the festival recipe book which is free with admission. A cardamom and honey blancmange and a violet, prosecco and gold funeral jelly are also demonstrated and they key to setting jellies or blancmanges with bits in them that can float to the bottom is to wait until the jelly is partially starting to set to add these.

Sam Bompas

Harry Parr

Before we know it the hour is over and the boys sign books and programmes and charm the gathering of girls (and yes it’s only girls in this line). They’re enthusiastic and sweet and chat genuinely to their fans before they move up the back to catch our next act: the fabulous Elena Arzak (pronounced Arthak).

Elena Arzak

One of the three themes for this festival is women in food and Elena is a wonderful representation of women as a three starred Michelin chef. She is also incredibly down to earth and without pretense and before the show starts she asks Bompas & Parr if they wouldn’t mind taking a photo with her and greets everyone that passes her station with a smile. She speaks English with an accent but apart from some words which she asks to be translated (which are actually just like the English word with a bit of Spanish accent to it) it is easy to understand her.

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It sucks to be short and not be able to get the photos you want in a crowd of photogs!

As if Australia weren’t crazy enough about it, this past weekend the whole Masterchef phenomenon has morphed from inside your television set to the Hordern Pavilion stage in Sydney. Friday to Sunday saw the Masterchef brand take over Sydney with shows and stands galore all with the promise of food and fun and a lineup of celebrity chefs. The Hordern Pavilion became home to the Masterchef live show and adjacent to this the Royal Hall of Industries housed the festival area with stalls and smaller shows and demonstrations. And outside there on the grassy area is the overflow and stalls where you can buy lunch, wines and gelato and have a chat with a chef or have a book signed or help yourself to a sample.

Adam and Marion from Masterchef season 2 at rehearsals

The day before the festival opened I popped in to watch a rehearsal and who should I come across but season 2 stars Adam and Marion as well as a few of the other season two personalities watching the rehearsals. Here they are along with George tasting Skye’s new ice cream from her range called Wild Sugar.

Behind the scenes: prepping for the shows

Everyone’s trays ready for their segment

The judges practice pensive looks

The next day after a wander around on a preview tour, my friend Gina and I head into the Hordern Pavilion to catch the theatre show. Tickets to the festival and the outdoor area can be had for $25 but a ticket to the show is $25. The show is a little like the television pressure test come to life except of course the three leads Gary, George and Matt are much cheekier and funnier on stage than they are on the show. They start off with a presentation and music giving us a wrap up of the influence of Masterchef and then all three burst onto the stage in a cloud of smoke.

They pick four members of the studio audience who volunteer to make their own version of Gary’s quail dish. We all watch as he demonstrates it. There are gasps from the kids nearby when Gary cuts through the backbone of a quail and he and George prepare it while Matt sits on a chair and watches “You’re just the food critic, just stay there” they tell him. When he is finished, the four volunteers get started on their version-they have a total of 30 minutes to make theirs.

Matt Preston talks to Adam and Marion

Then Adam and Marion come on stage and tell us what they’ve been up to. Marion has a cookbook due out next year as well as a Marion’s Kitchen food range and Adam has a cookbook due out in April next year as well as plans to open up an izakaya style Japanese restaurant in Surry Hills. They then go off and mentor the four volunteers.

Donna Hay

Who is the next guest? Well the give away was when George introduced her as “the woman who has sold more cookbooks than all of us combined”. Hey hey it’s Donna Hay! Marion and Adam have two teams of kids in side stages towards the back and each team is supposed to do a mini challenge. Donna shows us how to do the signature Donna Hay pasta bowl with some spaghetti. The key is to gather up a good amount of spaghetti with tongs and either twirl the tongs or twirl the plate while gently depositing the pasta. “It’s all about altitude and attitude” she says. The kids give the pasta twirl a go.

According to Donna, this Christmas is all about trifle (her magazine has a trifle on the cover and eight trifle recipes inside) so the kids play with the various goodies on offer. Some trifles are more successful than others-George’s version doesn’t quite pass the Donna test. However a lucky audience member is bestowed his trifle as it is her birthday and gets a round of Happy Birthday sung to her.

Bonus trifle if it is your birthday!

Matt starts up a presentation about the three judges and how each international Masterchef franchise has their own version of the three stars from the flamboyantly dressed Matt, shave headed and stout George and suit wearing Gary. There are also some short compilations of Matt’s outfits, Gary’s sensitive moments crying and George’s colourful mangling of the English language.

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