Bourke Street Bakery, Surry Hills

 

Pastry has a funny way of cheering you up even on the worst of days. Even though I had to wait 30 mins for a bus from Sydney Uni to Surry Hills, and walk for 40 mins back to the city since I got sick of waiting for another bus, once I sank my teeth into the sweet and savoury pastries from Bourke Street Bakery I quickly forgot all about it.

Beef brisket pie - $5.30

I met up with Sir D in the park for a late lunch break and we set up our own little pastry picnic on the grass. I took a bite out of the beef brisket pie and my mouth was filled with tender beef and a thick, flavoursome gravy. Needless to say, the pastry was oh so buttery and it flaked everywhere - a sign of good pastry!

(L-R) Pork & fennel and Lamb & harissa sausage rolls - $4.50 each

Sydney Food and Wine Fair 2010

The Sydney Food and Wine Fair is an event which marks the end of the Sydney International Food Festival for another year and is also for a great cause, with proceeds of the event going towards the Aids Trust of Australia. It was a great event last year with high-end restaurants like Quay and Guillaume at Bennelong offering up some of their signature dishes as well as lots of freebies, so I was definitely looking forward to it this year.

In the queue for free Ben and Jerry's ice cream!

It was a hot day so we were so glad to see the colourful Ben and Jerry's van parked inside Hyde Park, with people scooping up some Ben and Jerry's ice cream for the masses. The queue was pretty long but it was worth the wait :)

Strawberry cheesecake Ben and Jerry's ice cream

Bourke Street Bakery's Strawberry Vanilla Brûlée Tart

There's always one thing that I absolutely HAVE to get every time I go to Bourke Street Bakery, and that's a strawberry vanilla brûlée tart. I went to Bourke Street Bakery a few weeks ago late in the afternoon and I was so disappointed that they had sold out of them that I went back the next week just to satisfy my craving. And oh it was so good, the crispy, buttery pastry with the creamy custard filling and of course, that crunchy, slightly bitter toffee on the top.

Sadly Bourke Street Bakery is quite far from me and so I thought I'd try making these yummy tarts at home using the recipe from the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook. It was surprisingly straightforward and to me the worst part was having to wait for the pastry to relax because I just wanted to bake them, blowtorch the hell out of the sugar on the top and devour them all!

Ok, so I admit I was still impatient and I didn't go through all the resting periods for the pastry which is why it shrank in the oven. But apart from having slightly shallower tart shells, the pastry was still as flaky and crisp as I remember it to be from the actual shop. I was also a bit ambitious with the amount of strawberry puree at first so when I put the custard into the tart shells it started to displace the strawberry puree that was in there - that's why there's not much strawberry in the photo unfortunately.

I've provided the original recipe below but since I only had 6 small tart tins that weren't quite the same size as specified, I just adjusted the measurements for my requirements. I found that even after doing that I still had some leftover strawberry puree but you can always use this as a topping for ice cream or another dessert. Or just do what Sir D did and drink the leftovers!

Bourke Street Bakery Carrot Cake

The other day, I received a random facebook message from Rachel, another food-loving friend of mine. This came across as a bit strange since we haven't spoken for a while. "I love Bourke Street Bakery!" it read, "and their pork and fennel sausage roll is AMAZING!"

I completely understood her need to extol the virtues of Bourke Street Bakery - the first time I tasted their strawberry vanilla brulee tart I was telling anyone who would listen how awesome their stuff was. I was so sad when their store in Broadway closed because I used to visit their frequently for post-uni pastries and other carb-laden goodies.

When I came across this fluffy looking carrot cake on Almost Bourdain and saw that it was a Bourke Street Bakery recipe, I had to make it just to get another taste of that BSB awesomeness. And it didn't disappoint - it was a light and moist cake with bags of flavour and of course it just gets better with lashings of cream cheese frosting and candied walnuts. This may just be the best carrot cake ever.