Christmas Desserts

This year, Christmas dinner was spent at our house. So all our relatives gathered there for a festive feast. My mum trusted me with desserts (as she always does), so I made a tropical trifle and christmas pudding.

The trifle was made by layering sponge rolls, passionfruit jelly, custard, mangoes, peaches, then cream and chocolate shavings on top.

It was really delicious, I especially liked the creamy custard with sponge rolls and fruit.

The christmas pudding was made quite similar to the christmas cake I made previously last year. Only thing different was that it had to be steamed in a pudding basin, for five hours!

We also lit it up while pouring brandy over it, and it looked spectacular! The blue flames licking and engulfing the pudding was a sight to see. I took a video of it, but not a picture. =(

Pour some custard over it and slice it to serve. Compared to Christmas cake, the pudding is much denser, richer and chock full of fruit. I would prefer pudding to cake any day.

Christmas @ Melbourne

Melbourne city was all decked out for Christmas! My friend and I went to the city for some Christmas shopping and to admire the xmas decos.

In Royal Arcade...

And LOTS of pine trees scattered about Federation square. Quite random, but pity they are all bare and plain. Should be decorated with pretty baubles and sparkly tinsel...

Gingerbread village created by Epicure. It was quite a big village too, and lots of effort went into making it.

The whole place smelled really comforting, full of gingerbread which makes you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

Lastly, I had the Passionfruit Waffle Sundae at Max Brenners. What's an outing without some sweets? Sinfully delicious, MB's waffles are to die for.

It even comes with a pot of melted chocolate on the side! As well as praline nuts. So SO good.

Eat out: High Tea @ Citylife Manningham

My church hosted a Christmas high tea the other day. I was really excited about it, because there are going to be all sorts of epic desserts there. Let the pictures tell you all about it...

The trifle was nice, the acidity of the fresh berries cut through the sweetness of the custard.

Lemon cheesecake was good too, though it was really different eating a cheesecake from a glass.

This was one of my favourites, love the berry jelly.

Another one of my favourites. Fresh mango and panna cotta so yummy!

This one is delicious too. Love the crackling of the burnt sugar on top.

They also had a cupcake decorating table for children. I wanted to do it but I was too old for it... T^T

The centrepiece on the tables were beautiful, really appreciated how much effort went into setting up this event.

These are some of my gatherings, hehehe. They also had savouries, but I mostly aimed for the deserts.

Was so full after that, my family and I skipped dinner. A sweet and sugary evening, perfect way to end the day.

Eat out: Dessert Outing 3

Yes, another dessert outing. I should create a series, lol. Be warned though, this outing today is way more epic than the previous two. You could get a toothache just by looking at the pictures, haha.

My friend and I started off with Luxbite. We wanted to check out the new Christmas/summer range.

How cute does the macaron snowman look?

This meringue monster looked similar to the one I ordered during the previous visit, but inside is totally different.

Instead of watermelon, it is now a pumpkin mousse with apricot, yoghurt and white choc sponge base.

Endless love - giant raspberry macaron with amazing lycee and rose filling.

Kudos to them for discovering this amazing flavour combination.

The Igloo - coconut panacotta with passion fruit, covered with marshmallow coating.

Like eating a cloud, absolutely lovely.

Can't forget their macarons! We tried two of their new flavours. Bamboo and oolong tea - nutty with roasted flavour of the oolong tea. No idea how this macaron was related to bamboo though... We both liked this macaron very much.

Ribena and lemonade. This one wasn't as good as the first. I couldn't taste any ribena or lemonade at all.

Chocolateria San Churros - chocolate cake drowned in molten dark chocolate and topped with whipped cream. So rich and divine.

Max Brenners - banana praline crepes with vanilla ice cream. Warm banana and nutella filling sandwiched by thin crepes, mmmm.....

Tutti frutti waffles. These waffles are the bomb. Crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, so perfect just on it's own.

Laurent Patisserie. I took this shot from upstairs, The shop layout is like an authentic french cafe, stepping into the place make you feel like you're in France.

The on top is called Bora bora, and the bottom called Bahia. Wonder what the names mean...?

Bahia was composed of a light chocolate nougatine mousse with flourless almond sponge and passionfruit.

Bora bora was made of coconut dacquoise, coconut and dark choc mousse with bonus coconut macarons!

Chokolait - Their famous choc pavlova. Light meringue with bits of chocolate embedded in the middle, topped with cream and strawberries, simply heavenly.

Burch and Purchese. Left is coconut sago mousse, passionfruit curd and salted ginger crumble. Right is a layered cake, with chocolate mousse, meringue, ganache, custard, sponge... that's why it's called chocolate chocolate chocolate, hahaha.

That's it! Oh my gosh, looking back I can't believe we eat all that. In one day. I totally skipped dinner after that, was way too full. And I'll definitely have sweet dreams tonight =DDDDD

Eat Out: Sydney!

Be ready for an epic food (sweet) post on Sydney! I'm gonna show you all the heavenly things I ate.

This was at a family gathering party. The mixed berry trifle on the top was the best. The brownies were deliciously sticky, and I couldn't stop at just one cassava cake (bottom right). The people who made these are serious dessert experts.

The was at Westfield food court, Via Del Corso Pasticceria. Apparently their gelatos are really good. I got a grape fruit gelato, which was pretty pricey. The flavour was good, but I got sick of it after a while.
A giant pistachio marshmallow from Sweetness the Patisserie. Really soft and fluffy.

Cake display at Azuma Patisserie. One of their specialities are the chiffon cakes. Sadly we didn't try them.

We did try the match latte. It was smooth and creamy, with the bitter tones of green tea. Thumbs up!

A chestnut mont blac. I finally get to try a mont blanc! They don't have it anywhere in Melbourne. Actually this one was too creamy for me. The top is all chestnut cream, and the bottom is a really thick biscuit base.

Black sesame piggy buns at Chef's Gallery. How adorable are they! I almost couldn't bear to eat them. Almost.

Steaming sweet black sesame filling, yum yum.

Next was Meet Fresh, a Taiwanese dessert cafe. This was grass jelly with taro balls and honey beans. It was so good! The taro balls were soft and chewy, and the grass jelly was not firm, almost liquid but overall such a great combination.

Mango supreme is another winner. It's like ice kachang, loaded very generously with lots of mangoes, topped with ice cream.

A honeydew mochi from a bakery in Chinatown. It had real melons inside!

The strawberry mochi version.
Cute cakes at bakery called 85 degrees.

And lastly some blackberries from my aunt's garden.