Macaron Day at Adriano Zumbo, Balmain

The queue outside Adriano Zumbo

It takes something special to motivate me to get up early in the morning, but the promise of 66 flavours of macarons at Adriano Zumbo's Macaron Day has me jumping out of bed bright and early on a Saturday morning. Despite the rain and the cold, the crowds have gathered for the event and though we arrive at 9am, there is already a queue outside the store.

Oh HAI!

An hour later and we're finally just about to step inside the shop and look who else is here! Suze and Phuoc weren't far behind Sir D and I in the queue.

(L-R, T-B) Pinenut gianduja, Pecan danish, Peanut butter and jelly, Pear vanilla macadamia, Passionfruit

The whole window display and the glass display inside the shop is filled with macarons galore! Such pretty colours!

(L-R, T-B) Salted butter popcorn, Salt and vinegar, Salted butter caramel, Salmon

With the macarons priced at only $2 each, it was hard to not go crazy and get all of them. The store was completely decked out in macarons with only a few loaves of bread sitting on the shelves on the wall. It was like entering Willy Wonka's chocolate factory except with macarons instead =D Macaron-tastic!

Some of the flavours that were originally listed on the pamphlet weren't available like beer and nuts, and blood and chocolate, but at least there were some new additions like fairy bread and cookie dough.

Lime and basil creme with raspberries (background), Passionfruit with raspberries (foreground) - $9.00 each

As we moved down the line there were also some giant macarons towards the end which were decorated with raspberries. I spotted one which was decorated similarly to one of my favourite Zumbo creations, the passionfruit tart, and so I had to get that too.

Tobaccoron flavour... hm...

The whole process was quite efficient since you were able to tick the boxes of the macarons that you wanted, and you handed your sheet to the people at the counter and they boxed up your macarons for you. Some of the more interesting flavours on offer included blue cheese, salmon and tobaccoron. None of which I tried.

After waiting for Phuoc and Suze to purchase their macarons we stacked up our boxes and proudly admired our stash. So much sugary goodness!

Why hello my pretties! This was just part of what we bought as well...

We tackled the big macaron first and it may just have been because it was the first one I ate but I loved it! The passionfruit flavour was in both the filling and the shell, and the tart raspberries helped to offset the sweetness of the macaron shells.

In total we got 29 different flavours (only 28 here because I left the rose flavoured one out of the photo by accident). Sir D decided to line them up in rows and columns so here we go...

top row: burnt toast, cereal box, milo, choc water, choc zumbo, finger bun, hamburger
2nd row: lollipop, lychee, choc smoked marshmallow, mocha, salted butter caramel, peanut butter and jelly, raspberry
3rd row: redskin, pancake and maple syrup, salted butter popcorn, salted milk choc caramel, cookie dough, fairy bread, black sesame
bottom row: blackcurrant, blueberry and lavender, citron, coffee, passionfruit, rice pudding, ruby grapefruit

My favourites would have to be redskin, milo and the three salted ones - they all tasted exactly as they should and the flavours were freaking amazing. I loved that burnt toast had a cube of butter in the centre and tasted so much like burnt toast it was unbelievable! Sir D thought hamburger was wrong and that cheese, beetroot and mustard are not suitable fillings for a macaron but I thought it was a rather ingenious idea. Cookie dough had oats in it and reminded me of an Anzac cookie. And the lollipop one had poprocks yay!

After we ate the hamburger one since it was oozing oil and getting soggy from the cheese and beetroot we had 28 left. And since Sir D and I are nerds we realised that 28 is a triangular number so here's a stacked triangle of macarons for you all! (p.s. the rose flavoured macaron is in the 2nd top row on the right)

Adriano Zumbo Patisserie
296 Darling Street
Balmain NSW 2041
Open Monday to Saturday, 8am - 6pm; Sunday, 8am - 4pm


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