Hot Chocolate on a Stick

If there's anything I love more than receiving foodie gifts, it's giving them. One of my best friends from high school S was leaving the sunny shores of Sydney for the rainy ones of London to study music (and become a famous violinist) so I tried to think of an appropriate going away gift for her.

I knew she loved chocolate and I know on those cold, gloomy days, nothing cheers me up more than a steaming mug of hot chocolate. So after doing some research on the internet about how to make a hot chocolate able to be transported internationally, I came across this brilliant idea on the Giver's Log - hot chocolate on a stick.

It was easy and simple to make - the key to getting a luscious, chocolatey hot chocolate is making sure you use good quality ingredients. This means using real chocolate that is high in cocoa butter and using good quality cocoa powder. The hardest part of this recipe was melting the chocolate at a low enough temperature to keep it 'in temper'; it's tempting to want to crank up the heat to melt it quicker but a bit of patience will give you smooth, shiny chocolate.

I made my hot chocolates on a stick in the shape of strawberries and penguins thanks to the silicon ice cube moulds that I received from Billy, Karen and Steph for my birthday earlier this year. I couldn't resist trying one and it was great - the chocolate melted nicely in the hot milk and it tasted like real chocolate, not that overly sweet powdered stuff. Since I used dark chocolate and S likes it sweet, I dipped some of them in white chocolate as well to make it a bit sweeter and wrapped them up individually for her to take to the UK. Hope you like them S!

Adriano Zumbo Patisserie, Balmain and Belle Fleur Fine Chocolates, Rozelle

Continuing on from our very satisfying brunch at Kazbah on Darling, we drove further up Darling Street to Adriano Zumbo's patisserie. It had been a few weeks since his appearance on Masterchef Season 2 with the fear-inspiring macaron tower, but obviously the Zumbo craze was yet to die down since we could spot the patisserie a mile away from the seemingly permanent queue of customers outside.

We joined the queue and I saw a lot of people who were walking past slow down as they got to Zumbo's patisserie and wonder what all the fuss was about. I also spotted these t-shirts as we approached the store-front - I heart zumbo oh yes I do (but not enough to buy the t-shirt, I'd rather buy more cakes haha)

When we finally got into the store itself it was madness, I could barely even see what cakes were left. It was already 2pm so a lot of the more popular cakes had been snapped up and given the current macaron hype I wasn't surprised to find out that there was only one macaron flavour left: Vegemite.

(left) Tarte aux fruits de la passion and "I'll Get Back To You Barry" cake; (right) "I'll Get Back To You Barry": Chocolate yogo creme brulee, soft chocolate gel, chocolate cereal crunchy, chocolate sable breton, chocolate caramel mousse, chocolate plaquette - $8.00

Easter Eatings - Hot Cross Buns and Fairtrade Chocolate

Happy Easter everyone! It just isn't quite Easter without some hot cross buns and this year I decided to bake some for my family instead of buying them.

To be honest, I've never been a big fan of hot cross buns but my parents seem to love them so I baked some for them. But I do know that I love freshly baked bread so eating these buns still hot from the oven and slathered with melted butter made them taste much better :)

And just in time for Easter, I received a block of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate from the lovely people at The Online Circle.

The great thing about Cadbury Dairy Milk is that it now uses Fairtrade products which means that the cocoa farmers get a fair price for their products as well as extra money to invest in social, economic and environmental development in their own communities. Yet another reason to indulge in some chocolate this Easter!

Lindt Chocolat Café, Sydney

One Friday afternoon in the city, Charm and I were in the mood for sugar. We headed over to Bacco Pasticceria in Chifley Plaza but alas, we'd come too late and they were pretty much sold out of their cakes! So the backup plan for our sugar hit ended up arriving in waffle form at Lindt Cafe.

Lindt Waffle: freshly made and served warm with Lindt vanilla white chocolate ice-cream and Chocolate Fudge sauce - $15.00

Cooking with BLT: Chilli Chocolate Brownies

Don't worry, this post isn't about some weird chilli chocolate brownie that involves bacon, lettuce and tomato as well! It's about a planned chillout night at Sir D's place which quickly turned out to be a boys night + my friend BLT and myself. So what do we do when the boys are playing video games? We bake of course!

Although I love a classic chocolate brownie, sometimes spicing things up with a kick of chilli just makes things a bit more exciting ;). In this case it definitely made things more exciting, since we decided to play a practical baking joke and give some unsuspecting guys a super-mega-chilli hit!

Deadly dousing of chilli...

The brownies were well received by all, even by those who received a slice that had been given the extreme chilli treatment. Funnily enough, most of them thought that there was something wrong with their tastebuds when they tasted the spicyness in the brownie rather than there being something wrong with the brownie itself! BLT and I were beginning to think that we hadn't doused the brownie with enough chilli powder until one person said, "I need some water...!"

Max Brenner, Sydney

Even though our meat-fest at Löwenbräu Keller saw us rolling out the door, we were on the prowl for more food to satisfy our dessert stomachs. Max Brenner seemed like the perfect place to indulge in some sweet, chocolatey, post-dinner goodness - and also because we all sorely miss the bald man since his departure from Chatswood :(

Giant choc-almond cookie - $4.00

We manage to grab one of the last remaining tables and make our selections from the menu. Queen Chu chooses a chocolate chip cookie which she generously shares with everyone. It's got pretty good crunch factor and I love the extra melted chocolate drizzled on top. Sir D and I end up scraping the plate with spoons just to get at all the chocolate!

Italian thick hot chocolate (milk) - $5.50