Give Away @ Cake Bake & Sweets Show Melbourne 2015

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

Updated :Competition now closed, scroll below for winners!

For anyone who has come across Eat.Play.Shop. in instagram, facebook or on this blog, it will come as no surprise to you that I love to bake when I have time.  I'm a sucker for a good pastry, a nice slice of cake, a sweet dab of salted caramel, a perfect macaron, a freshly baked tart..... all with a nice cup of tea.  So I super excited this time of year because the Cake Bake & Sweets Show is on again.  I took the kids last year and they had a blast and I'm looking forward going again this year.

There will be demonstrations by world class bakers, dessert artists and TV personalities (Reynold Poermomo! Duff Goldman of Ace of Cakes! Pierrick Boyer of Le Petit Gateaux!) as well as the opportunity to enjoy the tasty treats on offer, learn about the latest tools of the trade and be amazed by the entries of the Australian Cake Demonstrating Championships.  I haven't told the kids yet but there will be a 10m chocolate river and garden installation by  the Queen of Chocolate Kirsten Tibballs.  I don't know who will be more excited when we get there!

Give-away : I have 2 double passes to give away and it's all happening this weekend, so hurry up and enter.  Competition closes Thursday 22nd October at 12pm and the winners will be randomly drawn by the Eat.Play.Shop. kids (without looking!).  Winners will be announced on the blog, as well as on facebook, twitter and instagram, and I will let you know how to obtain your passes on the day.  If I can't find you by 11pm on Thursday the prize will be re-drawn.

For more info check the website : http://www.cakebakeandsweets.com/melbourne/

WHAT: 

Cake, Bake & Sweets Show, Melbourne
WHEN: Friday 23rd October 10am - 5pm
Saturday 24th October 10am - 5pm
Sunday 25th October 10am - 5pm
WHERE:Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
WHO:Duff Goldman (USA, Ace of Cakes), Miguel Maestre, Kirsten Tibballs, Reynold Poermomo (MasterChef 2015), Georgia Barnes (MasterChef 2015), Tim Clark, Pierrick Boyer, Katherine Sabbath and more...
WHY:Celebrity demonstrations
10m river of chocolate, complete with a 2.4m waterfall in the Willy Wonka Garden
Shopping and sweet treats

Competition Information :

One entry for each of the following, why not do all!

1) Commenting on this blog post

2) Sharing this blog post

3) Liking the Eat.Play.Shop. Facebook Page (comment here or on FB that you're a liker if you are already so!)

4) Sharing the Facebook Post on this Event on your Facebook

5) Commenting on the Facebook Post on this Event

6) Reposting the Instagram Post on your Instagram with #EPScakebakesweets

7) Commenting on my upcoming instagram posts on the Cake Bake & Sweet Show

8) Retweeting any of my twitter messages about the Cake Bake & Sweet Show

So many ways to enter, and only 48 hours to do so, be quick!

Competition now closed!

Such a big response!  Winners picked at random from a bag by the Eat.Play.Shop. kids :
- @eatingoffmyplate (via instagram)
- Catherine Porquier 
- Grace Koay

I will message you with instructions on collecting your prize very soon, please email back to confirm!

Disclaimer : double passes courtesy of The Cake Bake & Sweet Show and Thrive PR.

Eat. @ Pop Up Scroll

86 Smith Street, Collingwood 3066 ph 0433 849 281

The next new "old thing" in sweets has "popped up" in Collingwood in the form of Pop Up Scroll. 

I'm always up for something sweet so Bubs and I dropped by for an early afternoon tea the other day. 

We were served by a couple of friendly ladies with cute little aprons and they were very nice to Bubs.  He generally only likes to lick the icing off the top of cupcakes and has the ability to leave the cake perfectly in shape (eww), but to my surprise he wolfed down the mini scroll and we had to get another  (bigger) one which he again devoured!

The scrolls ($4.5, with mini versions for $3) are brioche based which explains the buttery softness. The original cream cheese is simply tasty and I can't blame Bubs for wanting more!

We bought some more scrolls to take home after our afternoon feast.  The Cherry and Pistachio had a delicious caramel topping that made me want to lick the screen of my camera just from taking a photo of it!

The Cherry, Cream Cheese and Gingerbread was a bit fancier and had a lovely Christmas-y feel to it. 

And last but not least we tried the chocolate and caramel.  Couldn't keep the little fingers from my photos, that's how much they liked it!

Can't wait to go back and try more flavours.  I am inspired to try my hand at making some at home too!

Eat. @ Tyranny of Distance & Agathe Patisserie

Tyranny of Distance - 147 Union Street, Windsor 3181

Agathe Patisserie - Fri & Sat - Rear of 97 Chapel St, Windsor 3181 (enter via Artist Lane) ph 0403 222 573, Sat - Prahran Market

I have been wanting to eat at Tyranny of Distance because I love, love, love it's name.  Unfortunately as the name suggests it is quite out of my way, but I recently made a trip down to Prahran and finally got to try it out on a brunch date with Bubs. 

I started with my usual cup of mocha, so good after the drive!

Bubs and I shared the "Salmon Eggs, nothing like Caviar" ($17.5), which was their house smoked salmon, beetroot relish, avocado, spinach, poached eggs and potato rosti.  I loved all the components of this dish, together and separately.  And it made for such a gorgeous looking dish!

After the delicious brunch I visited Agathe Patisserie, where the lovely Agathe sells her wonderful baked goods in the little back Alley (best to enter from Artist Lane, just around the corner from Tyranny of Distance).  As you may know I have a soft spot for pastries and baked goodies in general really, but I'm also bit of a fussy pastry-snob in that they must be really good.  Who wants to waste good calories on bad pastries!   Agathe's goodies ticked all the right boxes and I was super impressed with the lovely spread of croissants, cruffins and caneles I brought home that day.

The Juliette ($5) is a lovely almond croissant with raspberry and rose, beautiful with a cup of tea.

The croissant ($5) is made up of of layers and layers of light and flakey buttery goodness, easily one of the best croissants I've had in Melbourne.

And the caneles ($3) were perfect little cakes with a caramelised sweet crust and a soft, almost custardy centre.  Currently you can buy her delectable goodies from this location and also at the Prahran Market on Saturdays.  Agathe's most recent stall at the Cake, Bake and Sweets Show will no doubt make her goodies much more in demand!

I am most certainly inspired to make little trips to Prahran a lot more often.

Cook. @ Home - Pear Tarte Tatin

Hands up those who've been watching The Great Australian Bake Off?  I love watching it, especially whilst on Twitter as it's like watching a good show with a whole bunch of witty friends.  The down side of it is that I'm always hungry and hankering for some of the baked goodies that are happening on the screen.  A few weeks back they had an episode on tarts and it reminded me that I'd been meaning to try making a tarte tatin.  I've been thinking about it since I had a slice of Nadine Ingram's awesome pear tart at Flour and Stone when I visited Sydney earlier in the year.  In no way was my tarte tatin as yummy as that, but it was delicious, easy to make and the family gobbled it up in the blink of an eye!

Vanilla Pear Tarte Tatin      adapted from taste.com

2-3 ripe William Bartlett Pears 

100g sugar

50g butter

1 tsp of vanilla bean paste

one sheet of frozen puff pastry

1) Heat the oven to 200 C (fan force) and cut the pears into slices 

2) Melt the sugar over medium flame in an oven proof pan/skillet until slightly brown/caramelised - don't stir, but instead just agitate the pan as the sugar melts

4) Take the pan off the flame, add the butter and vanilla and stir to melt

5) Arrange the pear in whatever pattern you like on the pan, return to a medium flame for 5 minutes or until the pear is soft (becomes slightly translucent) and remove from heat

5) Cut your rolled out puff pastry with a sharp knife to just fit over the bottom of the pan. Place the pastry over the pear in the pan and tuck the sides in

6) Put the pan in the oven and bake for  20 minutes or until the pastry is slightly brown and puffy

7) Remove from the oven and rest for 5 minutes, put a large serving plate over the pan and flip, so that the tart sits on the plate pear-side up

8) Spoon over any remaining caramel and serve with a dollop of ice-cream

Cook @ Home - Orange Madeleines

So my instagram followers would have seen lots of photos of my madeleines, as I became a bit obsessed with these little delicate French cakes over the course of last year.  Finally here is the recipe I use most often.   I found this recipe a while ago from Le Delicieux and it's my absolute favourite one as a) it's so easy and b) these madeleines are so light and delicious!  I love making the batter the day ahead when I'm expecting guests, then after dinner I just grab my bowl of batter, fill the pans, bake the madeleines, and have impressive little cakes to serve with a cup of tea for dessert!  

Orange Madeleines

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup plain  flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup of caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed orange juice
• 80g of butter, melted

Method:

1) Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside
2) Using the whisk attachment,  add the sugar and orange zest to the mixer bowl and mix on the lowest setting until the sugar and zest are well combined (sugar becomes slightly orange!)
3) Add the eggs and whisk until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture becomes light and fluffy
4) With the mixer at its lowest setting, gently add the flour and vanilla extract, and mix until just combined
5) Add the melted butter and orange juice and again mix until just combined
6) Cover the bowl with glad wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours (overnight if possible)
7) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (355 Fahrenheit)
8) Grease your madeleine pan (I use butter), and fill with the batter to 2/3 full. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until cooked
9) Dust with icing sugar and serve

They are really quite easy and are soooooo very good with a cup of tea!

The trick to the pretty shell shaped is in the special madeleine pans which are quite readily available at most kitchenware sellers.

Filling the pan to 2/3 full will yield little delicate cakes.

Some people don't like the "hump" on their madeleines, others say it's not a true madeleine unless there's a hump!

Tips - 

• Madeleines are best eaten whilst warm, so take them out of the tin, cool slightly on a rack and serve them up straight away
• I use my KitchenAid to whip these up but it can easily be adapted for the Thermomix

Batch 21 - The Wedding Macarons

I am very flattered that my brother-in-law and my now-sister-in-law asked me to make my macarons as their bonbonieres for their wedding earlier on this year.  They are known to be hard to impress so it was a real honour (and challenge!) to be part of their special day!

We decided to make Lime Butter Cream and Raspberry White Chocolate Ganache flavoured macarons, as they are my most consistent and reliable flavours, plus the pink and green colours look so preeeetty!

All up I needed 100 boxes of 2 macarons each with extras.  100 x 2 macarons = 200 macarons = 400 shells + extras!  All in all Hubby and I made over 500 shells 3 nights prior to the wedding.  We couldn't start till about 8pm that evening after work and sorting the kids out for bed first, and baked till 1am the next morning.  Luckily we made extras as I got plenty of maca-wrong shells! (of course that ALWAYS happens when you LEAST want them to!)

  

Then I spent the next day making the filling and then piping and assembling the macs together.  That night we had fun matching the macarons and packaging them into little boxes with the bride and groom.

I have to admit that I did lose some sleep whilst planning on timing the macaron making for them to be perfectly matured for the reception, whilst still juggling work, and kids school and activities in the week prior.  Fortunately the obsessive planning worked out in execution! The wait staff at the restaurant must have thought I was crazy as I was ultra protective of the storage and handling of the macarons right up to the moment they were placed onto the tables as bonbonieres. 

The effort was well worth it in the end.  The wedding went off smoothly, the bride and groom looked relaxed and radiant, and I got lots of compliments from the guests for the macs at the end of the day!  I know I will never be a professional macaron maker but it was great fun having a taste of what it felt like to make such a large quantity of macarons!

Lessons Learned - I bow my head down to pastry chefs everywhere.  I love my baking but I don't think I will ever be able to handle doing it as a profession!

Batch #20 - Blueberry and Anpanman Kaya Macaron

So this was going to be a post about BLACKCURRANT macarons because I was going through a craze for blackcurrant flavoured things.  A local cafe stocked Macarons by Josephine and even though I try not to buy them since making my own macarons, I could not resist and used to indulge in the blackcurrant ones whenever I was there for a coffee.

We decided to try and make a version of the blackcurrant macarons by boiling down some ribena and making a ganache out of it.  Hubby usually does the boiling down of fruit syrups for me but on this occasion the syrup was heated for a bit too long and we ended up with a ribena caramel!  I still made a ganache out of it but didn't like the flavour much.  In the end I only filled a handful of macarons with it and ended up making a blueberry white chocolate ganache instead for the rest.  On a more positive note I thought this batch of macarons produced the most uniformly sized shells and petite feet out of all the ones I've ever baked.

I also left some macronage uncoloured and made some Anpanman macarons by filling them with store bought Kaya for my nephew's birthday, which turned out pretty well I must say considering the minimal effort that took!

Batch # 19 - The Unwanted Hello Kitty Macarons

I haven't written a post on macarons for a quite a while.  And the reason is THIS : I didn't really want to  write this post.  I felt discouraged, and worst of all, I was embarrassed I felt this way, after this particular batch of macarons.  This was made for a fundraising bake sale for one of the kidlet's extra-curriculum activities.  We were asked to bring along baked goods to sell, and thinking that I didn't want to be the umpteenth parent to bring cupcakes, I decided I would bring along some Hello Kitty Macarons since my recent successful trial run was well received.  The event was being held on a Sunday afternoon, so despite the crazy juggle of weekday activities, I made time to bake on a Thursday evening so that the macarons would have matured nicely by Sunday.

Instead of obsessing about how to keep Kitty's bows aligned, I should have thought harder about the target audience.  Parents and kids commented on the cute Hello Kitties on the day, but I don't think a lot of people there knew about macarons, let alone the effort it took to make them.  Most of the kids spent their money on bags of squashed brownies and cupcakes, whereas the parents went for the bar cakes.  (Chocolate, I should have made something chocolate!!!!)  Yes, sadly  lots of unsold Kitties came home with us!

Yes I felt a bit like this particular Hello Kitty!

I admit I felt pretty ordinary that day.  And then I felt even more awful that I had felt awful.  After all, it's not about whether my baked goods sold or not, it's about raising money!  Fortunately my Hubby and kids are my most appreciative audience, and Macaron Monster would have eaten the whole lot we brought home if I hadn't stopped her, bless her heart.  Watching her happily munch on the macarons made me feel happy again - SHE is my intended target audience after all, and why I started baking these tricky little diva treats to begin with! 

Lessons Learned - This entire selling macarons thing was a lesson learnt.  I think I won't be giving up my day job in a hurry!

Batch #18 - My First Macarons Sale and the Hello Kitty Macarons

I was commissioned by my good friend Tepid Duck to make a batch of macarons for her friend's birthday recently.  This is the first time I've actually made macarons for someone who isn't in my immediate family or circle of friends, so I was a bit nervous but stuck to what I think are my best and favourite flavours - the Salted Caramel, and the Lime Butter Cream macarons.  

This is a big occasion for me, as it marks the first time I've been paid for something other than what I have been trained for (yes I still have cold hard cash sitting on my table, not willing to spend it yet!)   I have always been more into maths and science in my studies and chosen career, so to get paid to do something creative gives me a real buzz!  I'm pretty sure the recipient of these macarons is a follower of this blog, so Happy Birthday to you (you know who you are!) and I hope you enjoyed them!

I also had a little fun and made some of the Salted Caramel ones into Hello Kitty macarons after spotting them here.  The ears were made by teasing out a little of the macronage with a toothpick after piping.  Kitty's bow was made by "gluing" 2 heart shaped sprinkles onto the macaron with some Butter Cream.  The rest of Kitty's face was drawn on with food coloring pens that Hubby hunted down for me during his lunch break.  

Hello Kitty Macarons!

I only made 8 of these but they were a huge hit with the kids.  They were certainly a huge hit on Instagram as this has become my most "liked" picture, and I also seemed to have gained a whole lot of young teenage girls as followers as a result!

I couldn't bear to bite into Hello Kitty's face.....