My friend Teena has been telling me about Ganache many times over. You see she is a friend of the owner’s wife and as a croissant fan or fiend, she adores the croissants here. So after a lunch together one day we make our way over to Ganache in Castlecrag. Having undergone a recent renovation earlier this year it looks oh so French in an understated way.
Desserts are like expensive shoes. You know you shouldn’t buy more but they’re just so irresistable that you just cannot say no. So when I invited my friend Queen Viv to accompany me at the Sugar hit at the Inter Continental Hotel I had no idea that she was in her final days of a detox. But like the trooper that she is, she decided that today would be the last day of her detox and if you’re going to celebrate the end of a detox, you may as well do it in style.
So on this Thursday night we arrive at the Intercontinental. We find a park a few streets away and in the cold wind and the high heels we’re just glad to be able to sit down and have a nice glass of something and a dessert. We’re a little early for the Sugar Hit by about 20 minutes so they ask us to take a seat and they’ll bring it out. We choose a banquette of course and sink our weary wind battered selves into it and before long, the waiter arrives with the dessert wine. For the cost of $20 you get a dessert and a glass of Brown Brothers Moscato dessert wine which is a lovely, very sweet drop.
Front to back: Gold Leafed White Chocolate Dome, Dark Chocolate Chilli Slice and Chocolate Hazelnut Macaroon with Chocolate Ganache with Nashi Pear Chutney & Vanilla-Honey Syrup
I realise the title of this story sounds like one of those wonderfully magical children’s tales (and there is a little bit of a tale of a small child for you here too). The Ugly Cake that I speak of from Buppa’s Bakehouse in Newtown is not very ugly at all, despite the name. Buppa, a childhood nickname that stuck, contacted me a couple of weeks ago asking me if I would like to come in and taste her home baked goodies at her American style bakery, all made by her and her alone. I was in the throes of the flu (and no, not Swine Flu) and despite wanting to try them straight away, I begged off until my taste buds were back. They came back shortly after and I was looking forward to my visit.
Open for a mere 5 weeks, Buppa’s Bakehouse (Buppa rhymes with Papa) is on the quieter end of King Street in Newtown. In an elegantly hued building, it has a sparkling shopfront but you’d have to know it was there to find it amongst the jumble of shops. Buppa shows me her range of items and they’re certainly American in theme with peanut butter, chocolate and cream cheese featuring in many, cookies in many forms, all manner of American cakes and of course real boiled bagels - the New York way.
“My baking philosophy is that things should contain real ingredients, look delicious and be highly edible rather than just decorative. I am hoping that my ‘homemade’ style catches on and people start to remember what real cheesecake tastes like rather than the ones you can get that came out of a box, shipped from a warehouse etc.” she says. She’s more West Coast low key (actually San Franciscan) rather than the forward driven East Coast type.
Her story is interesting too – as the story goes she grew up very poor and to supplement the family’s income, her mum would enter baking contests but as there was a limit to the number of entries she could make, she entered under her children’s names. Buppa however was one of the 9 children that could cook so she entered her own goodies and ended up winning many prizes. The $5 for the children’s division and $10 for the adult’s division would prove a windfall for the family and set off a baking obsession for decades on and would urge her to quit her teaching job at an international school to open the bakehouse.
Blueberry bagel with cream cheese $4
I started with a blueberry bagel with cream cheese. She brings it out toasted and it’s generously spread with cream cheese. “It’s American style!” she says. “You’ve been to America right so you know that everything there is over the top and very generous in size” she says. The bagel is indeed a real boiled bagel with real blueberries (and her trick is to use dried blueberries which are costly but fresh ones are too soft). The cream cheese is thickly spread and some falls out as I bite in but it’s delicious. And yes it’s a bit more home made looking than bagels you may see which are made on a machine but that’s the point.
Pear & Plum Cheesecake $6
The baked cheesecake has small chunks of stewed cinnamon pears and plum and is topped with Beurre Bosc pears and cinnamon sugar. The filling is beautifully creamy and yet light. The buttery, crunchy crust is fantastic – possibly my favourite cheesecake crust ever and never discount the power of cheesecake crust. Get the wrong biscuit and it won’t be nearly as good.
Ugly Cake $7
As part of my indulgent series of visits to patisseries around Sydney (i.e. the conspiracy to move me up a jeans size) I decided to visit Pasticceria Papa with the lovely Angela from Creating a Stir who is visiting Sydney from Japan. Angela is a blogger I immediately bonded with as she is a lovely soul who lives in Japan with her husband and three children and who faces many of the challenges I did living there yet still maintains her sense of humour and style. She’s also the wonderful gal who sent me an amazing package of Japanese goodies-full of Japanese Pocky and Kit Kats of which I am totally addicted! So when I heard she was coming to Sydney I knew we had to meet up and I knew that it would have to be somewhere brilliant to impress her and preferably with food she may not be able to get in Japan. So Pasticceria Papa, with the legendary Ricotta Cake it was!
Megumi
Angela has brought along her gorgeous 2 year old daughter Megumi who turns out to be just the kind of daughter I’d want for myself. We take a seat outside in the sunny courtyard as it’s a warm Winter’s day and go inside to order at the counter. When I’d first sent Angela the link to the website with the list of goodies they stock, it was so huge we both wondered whether it was a sample of what they had but judging from the enormous displays with a myriad of goodies, it seems to be what is available all of the time.
Megumi with her chocolate bear lollipops
We choose a couple of necessary savouries but of course the sweets have won our hearts and the aroma of butter wafts past our nose as we walk in from the courtyard outside. We ask the girl behind the counter what is good and she makes a few recommendations and of course we ask for the ricotta cake. We take our number and they tell us they’ll bring us our goodies. The cakes arrive first and there’s a bit of a wait for our savouries which we want to eat first. I go back in and there is some confusion as to where we were sitting and a mix up with the order itself with the counter girl putting the wrong item into the system so after several questions back and forth they assure me that we’ll get our correct order. I bought some organic chocolate bear lollipops from our Canberra trip for Megumi and she managed to eat all three whilst sampling teeny bites of our food – what a good girl and a future food blogger no?
Mushroom Arancini ball (price, no idea as we were incorrectly charged)
You may think that I am trolling around Sydney going to each and every patisserie and you’d probably be right. My latest stop was Black Star Pastry, tucked away in Australia Street Newtown, right next to Oscillate Wildy and opposite Newtown Police Station. Who knew that in this little street, there would be so much foodie goodness? And what is Black Star Pastry? It’s Christopher Thé’s newish patissserie, he of Claudes and Quay fame.
Mel and I are an ambitious pair-we’ve just ingested an enormous lunch and yet we’re still looking for sweets not 20 minutes later. Our eyes, and ambitions are definitely bigger than our stomachs. We walk past the crowd sitting outside on stools nursing their coffees (beans from The Little Marionette) and cakes resting on the Philippe Starck Gnome tables. There’s a young boy who wanders in with his mouth covered with chocolate-a satisfied customer in need of more sustenance no doubt. It’s a small space with seating in the bay window as well as small stools and tables outside. We quickly nab a window seat while I decide on what we’re having.
Quirky Philippe Starck Gnome Tables
Plum, Fig & Orange cake
Strawberry, Rose and Watermelon cake
As seen in the Foodies Guide 2010
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