Black Star Pastry, Newtown

Tucked just off King St, I felt like Black Star Pastry was my little bakery secret – until H mentioned it’s gingerbread ninjas. Secret’s Out! The bakery also functions as a café and although I’ve never eaten in, the polished surrounds and friendly staff create an intimate setting, regardless of how busy it gets. I do feel this is an inadequate post in terms of pictures, since the following snapshots are only a small slice of what’s really on offer…

The place is run by Christopher The, formerly of Quay, Claudes and Sonoma’s, who creates a multitude of sweet and savoury goodies, in addition to some seriously good bread. Glancing around, the sweet section of the shop is laid out in an open manner on cooling racks adorning the counters. Little chocolates, those gingerbread ninjas (so cute) and little bite size chocolates easily tempt me at every turn.

Lemon Curd Biscuit

I choose this one! True to my penchant for lemon, this really was a no brainer. The thumbnail biscuit is delicately crumbly while the lemon curd is silky with that satisfying tang.

What really caught my eye were the jams for sale, near the cash register I eyed off the large jars of marmalade and rose petal jam before deciding to wait for next time.

Mushroom Quiche

Inside the Mushroom Quiche

Herr Mouttard’s savoury option, we also chose a baguette that day which we gobbled up quickly! Lovely quiche, the pastry was perfect and the bread on the baguette (brie and salad) was probably the best I’ve had in a while.

I find Black Star Pastry an elegant patch in the of Newtown, it’s products with an air of refinement equal to the showiness of my other favourite bakery Adriano Zumbo. While Zumbo definitely has an edge on sweetness with his gorgeous and decadent creations, Black Star Pastry offers much better bread (big plus for me) and savouries. It’s also more convenient than Sonomas me lol. To me it’s quite similar to the smaller patisseries/boulangeries I encountered while in Paris, which were full of dazzling and delicious creations and truly sanctuaries of all things baked.

277 Australia St

Newtown, NSW, 2042
Ph: (02) 9557 8656

Other Bakery related posts
Caketown, Newtown
Adriano Zumbo, Balmain

Adriano Zumbo Weekend

If you’re a reader of other Sydney food blogs you’ll realise this post is late(ish). 3 days may not be much in the real world, but it definitely is in the blogosphere lol.

I’ve just had a Balmain/bakery oriented weekend, starting with a breakfast on Saturday, which I’ll post later:), and a trip to Adriano Zumbo, followed on Sunday with…….Adriano Zumbo again, this time with fellow Sydney food bloggers.

SATURDAY

The new collection at Adriano Zumbo is aptly titled – “Please sir, can I have some more!” and is a spectacular array of mouth watering desserts. I hada quick looksee on Saturday morning to give myself a heads up (and also to satisfy a post breakfast sweet tooth lol). Sindel, Madam Saucy and I took quite a while trying to decide what we wanted.

What’s on offer

Mingled in with the newbies are some remnants from the previous collection, including the green Tuk Tuk Nothing.

Scrolling to the right…

I ID the Charles du Jour as a target for the foodblogger event, The intriguing baubles are enough to suck me in, I get a White Christmas/Wedding Cake vibe lol.

And right again…

I can see the successor to the Tuk Tuk Nothing, it’s pink (always a good sign with me), but has no description tag. I ask the lady behind the counter and she tells me she has no idea what it is either and is also waiting for a tag lol. The mystery!

I’ve been craving cheesecake for quite some time now, only to be greeted with old/dry looking cheesecake everywhere I turn. Awkward. But not here!!! I choose the Miss Marrple Cheesecake and carefully bring it home:)

Miss Marple Cheesecake
Orange cheesecake with orange strawberry compote, cream cheese crème legere with crepe and maple glaze.

Apologies but this is a (slightly) erroneous shot. For the “attention to detail” types out there, there are actually white chocolate slivers pieced on the ends like bookends, but I may have eaten them on the way home….

A gorgeous dessert - satisfied that craving quick smart.

Sindel chose the Chocolate Fondant, but we got to that before the camera could;)

Onto Sunday!

Firstly a big “Thank you!” to Reem for organising us:)

This is the first foodbloggers meet I’ve been to and I had a fabulous time. It’s great to be able to put faces to the names I’m so used to online. It’s a great crowd and quite a spectacle at times – cameras and desserts galore. Herr Moutarde graciously accompanied me and we had a decadent breakfast to start our Sunday:) Being me, I spent a fair bit time chatting which subsequently caused a drop in photo quality/quantity. This unfortunately means my snaps are incomplete for the entire collection. Not to worry! There were so many of us you’ll see pics all over the net!

Attendees:

Reem: I am obsessed with food
Helen: Grab Your Fork
Suze: Chocolatesuze
Karen: Citrus and Candy (my new designated camera buddy lol)
Lorraine: NotQuiteNigella
Richard: Herecomesthefood
The team from Eatshowandtell (Howard, Linda, Teresa)
Simon: Simon Food Favourites

Plus a few others that popped in as I was leaving and sadly did not get to meet. So, where do you put a gaggle of snap happy food bloggers?? In the nearby Adriano Zumbo Café Chocolat of course! This man is slowly but surely creating an empire. Luckily for the rest of us, Reem has managed to secure us a cosy little alcove in this place where we can rest, sample and photograph our desserts in peace:)

The Table

No doubt place to be: seating AND food:)

Charles du Jour
Tart pate sucree, vanilla ganache, vanilla crème Chantilly, vanilla water bursts, vanilla glacage.

Helen beat me to this beauty, and generously divided it up so we could have a bite, (foodbloggers are a generous breed). It really is as good as it looks.

Choccies!

Herr Moutarde and I couldn’t resist the mass of chocolates ordering counter. Guess who ate more?

PARIS – La Vie en Rose
Rose crème brulee, raspberry sorbet balls, fresh lychees, rose macarons served with a strawberry tapioca shake.

It became evident to me that the mass purchasing had led to the group with samples of nearly all available bakery treats. I graciously stepped forward to choose an offering from the café menu (my life is tough). The counter boy (Charles) at the bakery had recommended a dish with creamed rice and fruit salad, which sounded amazing but alas, I was told there was none left when I got back to the cafe:( I ended up choosing this beautiful concoction, named after one of my favourite cities. With scattered rose petals, it’s easily the prettiest thing in sight.

The studio

The sheer number of desserts led to a makeshift studio being set up at the nearby table, which was quickly swarmed by photohungry bloggers.

Past jobs
Kaffir lime and ginger pannacotta, black sticky rice pudding, exotic fruit jelly and palm sugar marscapone.


Framboise Millefeuille
Raspberry coulis and marscapone with caramelised puff pastry and biscuit jaconde.


Zumbo the Kid
Vegemite bavaroise, peanut butter crème legere, raspberry jelly, chocolate peanut glacage, peanut feullitine, flourless chocolate biscuit


Wheely Wildly Wendy
Fresh roasted peach in a tonka bean crème legere and sandwiched between two almond dacquoise disks and rolled in almond crumble.

Yum! I remember a few months ago, Daisy Moo and I split the green Tuk Tuk Nothing, much to her dismay - she’s not of a fan of coconut, which is beautifully laced through the green version of Zumbo’s wheel. I’ll be pestering her to share this with me next time we go;)

UZC
Biscuit macaron, sweet corn jelly, saffron bavaroise, vanilla brulee.

Another dessert I quite enjoyed was the rice pudding éclair that the lovely Suze brought along, a simple and lighter combination of rice pudding and cinnamon in an éclair form which I could easily have eaten all day. Sweet Karen brought along the cheesecake and Cassius, while Richard also gave me a bite of another café creation called It’s a Macaron and Not a Hamburger. Check out their blogs for photos:) So many things to try!!!!

The new collection will be available until the 22nd of May 2009, which gives us all plenty of time to try them all again, and again….and again:)

Adriano Zumbo Patissier
296 Darling St
Balmain, NSW, 2041

Open 7 days

Phone: (02) 9810 7318

Adriano Zumbo Café Chocolat
308 Darling St
Balmain, NSW, 2041
(inside Balmain Mall)

Open 7 days

Phone: (02) 9555 1199

Won’t you take me to…. Caketown??

I think Caketown is an absolute gem. Without fail I walk out of that closet of a bakery with a mouth-watering, oh-so-satisfying treat. I highly recommend:) The chocolate éclairs are divine, and I wouldn’t say no to one of their meringue pigs either.

After a frantic rush through the rain that seems to be plaguing us these days, Cherries and I decided we deserved a treat, so, damp from rain, ran into our beloved bakery.

Our Rewards

Strawberry tart

A personal favourite of mine. The sweet strawberries sit atop luscious custard, encased by delicate, buttery pastry….mmmmm.

Hedgehog

Unsurprisingly, this baby’s called ‘Hedgehog’. Imagine a rich, moist chocolate fudge cake. And imagine sandwiching said cake with the most decadent, sinful chocolate ganache. And then imagine this ganache sandwich being engulfed by even more ganache in the shape of teardrop things. This my friends is the mouthwatering hedgehog:)

Banana Raspberry Pistachio

I’ve never had this one before, and the name only tells me flavours… Upon inspection it appeared to be some sort of cakey thing covered in chocolate and green. Once you have a bite though, it’s an explosion of banana bread and chocolate:)

Lemon Meringue Pie

Being obsessed with all things lemon at the moment, I couldn’t resist this one. Apologies for the mess – it got crushed in the box:( Pretty self explanatory really – lemony goodness, topped with sweet meringue, and there’s that beautiful pastry again.

So that’s only a small snapshot of what Caketown has to offer. If you’re ever in the area, pop in and have a looksee, you won’t be disappointed:)

Caketown
569 King St
Newtown, NSW, 2042
Phone: (02) 9557 6766

Meringue Pig - Oink Oink!