Eat. and Shop. @ Yarra Valley Chocolaterie and Ice-Creamery

35 Old Healsville Rd, Yarra Glen 3775 ph (03) 9730 2777

Who doesn't like chocolate right?  My high school friends and I have an ongoing "date" to get together for an outing with all our children (there are now 7 between the 3 couples!) every Australia Day, and this year we headed to the Yarra Valley for a chocolatey experience.

As we walked through the front door we were greeted by not one, not two, but THREE massive bowls of dark, milk and white chocolate for FREE TASTING.  Oh wow, combined that with the kick-ass air conditioning with an outside temperature of 35 degrees, you know where you can find me for the rest of the day!

There is much to see within the chocolaterie.  The kids were fascinated with watching the chocolate production behind the giant glass window on one side of the building.  You'd be surprised at how long our children were entertained by strawberries being covered in chocolate, moving along a lengthy conveyor belt to cool and emerging on the other end as a choc-dipped strawberry!  Whilst that was happening I had a good wander around, looking at all the chocolate products, from chocolate sauce to chocolate tea, chocolate body products and some good old fashioned hand made chocolates which are all available for purchase and to take home.

We decided to have brunch here and were fortunate enough to find a table, as the cafe area rapidly filled up after we were seated.  The kids were entertained by pencils and coloring pages whilst the adults had the difficult task of deciding what to eat from the menu.

I kid you not I could not decide what to eat for ages, especially standing in front of this display of yummy desserts, including a massive macaron made to look like a hamburger!

For savouries we tried the BBQ chicken pizza ($18) which was surprisingly good.  Okay I was not expecting to eat anything but chocolate on this trip!

They also had a limited number of egg and bacon, and spinach and feta tarts ($9) served with relish.  We had one of each and again were surprised by the lovely pastry and the layers of egg and filling in the tarts.

For the kids there's a lunch box option ($11) which contained a ham and cheese roll, a fruit drink, a chocolate cookie and a fruit skewer.

Then of course it's on to the bit I was anticipating the most, which was the dessert!  Surprisingly I opted for a non chocolate based dessert of Lemon Meringue Tart ($9) which was nonetheless served with a little shot of chocolate.  This was a beautiful sweet which we had with a lovely little pot of tea for one ($4.5, pot for 2 is $6).  To be honest I'd probably had waaaaay too much chocolate for "tasting" as I wandered around the shop so this was a really refreshing choice of dessert!

My friend K couldn't go past the Waffles ($12.5) which look (and apparently tasted) absolutely amazing.

Her Hubby couldn't not try the Chocolate Orange Creme Brulee ($9.5) which was lovely, zesty and smooth.

The kids were totally obsessed with having ice-cream (who could blame them on such a hot day!)  2 scoops of bubblegum and cookies & cream ice cream had them totally defeated and was not ludicrous at $6.5.

After this epic brunch the kids had a great run around outside on the lovely grounds of the chocolaterie, whilst we took in the gorgeous view of the Yarra Valley.  After that we took them around to the great adventure playground in the nearby McKenzie Reserve where they got to burn off all the excess energy from all the chocolate tasting, and we drove home with them all falling asleep in the backseat, happy after a wonderful day trip out.

Toilet - yes, with change facilities
Highchair - yes

Sweet & Sticky Event @ Brunetti Carlton (Melbourne Food & Wine Festival)

March is a fabulous month for the food and wine lovers of Melbourne, as it's the annual Melbourne Food and Wine Festival (MFWF).  It is truly amazing how many restaurants, providores and producers are involved in this event, pulling out all the tricks in their bags to showcase their goodies.  Masterclasses, Pop-Up bars and express lunches are just some of the events that are on offer this year, which runs from March 2nd to 21st.  With 3 kids it is difficult for us to attend many of these excellent opportunities to challenge our taste buds, but when an opportunity came up for us to attend the Sweet & Sticky Event hosted by Buller Wines at Brunetti in Carlton, Hubby graciously looked after the kids while I attended with my soon-to-be-sister-in-law.  

The chocolate fondue on arrival!

And what a cool event to attend!  In essence it is a wine and chocolate tasting masterclass, with experts "walking" us through 8 aged fortified wines matched with 8 delectable hand-made chocolates/desserts.  Buller Wines is a fourth generation family winery in Rutherglen, Victoria, and Richard, Mica, Susan and Angela host the informative evening in a casual and relaxed setting.  Those who know me (or have followed my blog) will know of my lack of experience and tolerance for any significant amount of alcohol, but even for such a novice as myself, the evening was very interesting and easy to follow.   

Richard Buller is a well travelled and extremely knowledgeable Winemaker, who is a fountain of information with his extensive  experience in wine including "having grown up drinking it all his life".  Mica Benito is a passionate Chocolatier who has been in the industry for 13 years.  She hand-makes all the chocolates and ice-creams that are matched with the wines on the evening and has taken my chocolate appreciation to another level.

Richard talking us through the wine-tasting.

I quite enjoyed the sweetness of the wines, my favourite being the Vintage Port.  Despite knowing I had 5 more wines to taste I finished this one off!  It was also paired with my favourite chocolate, which is the 70% Dark Chocolate from Ecuador.  Mica's other creations ranged from oh-so-smooth vanilla caramels, to truffles and chocolate with liqueur laced fillings, but something about this combination really hit the spot for me.

One of the highlights for me was experiencing the Rare Tokay poured over hand-made vanilla bean ice-cream.  A very grown up treat for sure!

There are still 2 more sessions of the Sweet & Sticky Event during this year's Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.  Tickets are $65 per person and includes all the wines and chocolates during the tasting, as well as a chocolate fondue on arrival, and some savoury treats during the break (to help me soak up some of my poor alcohol tolerance!)  I had a great time trying all the wines and chocolates with my (nearly!) sis-in-law.  Hopefully as the kids get older, getting baby-sitting will get easier and Hubby can come along next year!

Tickets to the event can be purchased from here.

Check out Buller Wines on their website.

And of course Brunetti Cafe's webpage - I found out they're moving back to the their original site, which is where Borders used to be!

And finally if you're wondering what it's like taking kids to Brunetti, here's my previous post on Brunetti @ Myer

Disclaimer - My guest and I attended the Sweet & Sticky Even compliment of Brunetti Cafe

Batch #17 - Raspberry Dark Chocolate Ganache & Lime-Lemon Macarons

Hot on the heels of the last batch of macarons, I made an even bigger batch to share with friends and family.  Time for more fun with food colouring splatters!  For this batch I again made the ever popular Lime-Lemon, and at Little One's request made Raspberry ones, this time using a dark chocolate ganache.

Maybe because we went and watched Breaking Dawn the night before (!?), but I subconsciously decided to use red rather pink colouring for the raspberry dark chocolate shells.  The effect was a little Twilight x Dexter while I was waiting for them to dry.....

Fortunately they didn't look too bad post-assembly!

I really quite liked the dark chocolate ganache matched with the raspberry jam.  I still haven't mastered the art of ganache making, and I'm much more comfortable using a straight chocolate and cream ganache, and adding a fruit flavour via the use of a jam or coulis, rather than infusing the chocolate with the fruit (puree) itself.

The most important thing I learnt from this batch was that I COULD BAKE 2 TRAYS AT THE SAME TIME!!!  I usually make 60-80 macarons per batch, which equates to 120-160 shells, or roughly 7-8 trays of shells.  I bake these one tray at a time for around 15 minutes each, so even though it's not hard work, it's quite tedious and takes me about 2 hours in total just to do the baking.  I decided to try a few tips from Pierre Herme's book and worked out a routine of swapping the trays around so that the shells would achieve the feet, and still bake reasonably evenly.  Yes, I was happy dancing round the kitchen at the thought of being able to half the time I spend baking!  And yes, I could spend more time playing with food-styling and taking photos of the fruits of my labour!

Lessons Learned -

• Opening the door briefly during baking can let off steam from the oven and help reduce the appearance of those horrible "abalone" feet that appear when the shells rise and collapse too quickly due to excess heat.

Eat. @ L'atelier de Monsieur Truffe

351 Lygon St, Brunswick East 3057 ph : (03) 9380 4915
Wednesday to Friday 8am to 4pm/ Saturday and Sunday 8:30am to 4pm

Having recently been to Monsieur Truffe, I'd been very much looking forward to visiting its new post in Brunswick East, which I've heard is much more spacious and therefore more kid-friendly in terms of space.  On arrival at the address, all we could see was this bright red door. 

Yes, we did miss the door and nearly went into El Mirage next door.

This very pram friendly, enticing but unassuming red door opens into a bright, cheery, warm and spacious room. 

There's undercover parking for the bikes too, for those who can
cycle here - great to work off the calories!

The main attraction are 2 big (chocolate making) machines on one side of the room.

The seating was a mix of large communal tables and smaller tables for 2 and 4.  They had one high chair which we snapped up for Bubs in Pram.

First up of course is a warming cup of hot chocolate (house blend 70%).  This is the same hot chocolate we had at the Collingwood Monsieur Truffe of course.  Seriously smooth and creamy, it is a bit of a chocolate meal in itself.

Their Baby Chocolate is a smaller version of mine, but packs just as much punch.  It might be a tad strong for some younger kiddies used to a more watered down hot chocolate, but older kids will definitely enjoy this more "adult" version!

It was 11:20am, but I was keen to order from the lunch menu, which begins at 11:30am.  The friendly waitress let us order and I picked the Croque Monsieur, with braised leeks, whole grain mustard bechamel, Swiss Gruyere and Grandmother Ham ($13).  A very filling meal.  The ham was very tasty and the cheesy top of the toasted bread was a hit.

A pretty serious sandwich!

The Kids Blueberries Pancakes ($6) were 3 little freshly prepared pancakes with whole blueberries and a dipping sauce.  This was very yummy, and excellent for little hands to handle.

The pastries that we had at Monsieur Truffe in Collingwood are of course also available here.  We were way too full to have any on this occasion.

There were lots of other goodies to buy from the shop to take home, and the whole area is very kid and pram-friendly.

These Gingerbread Men were gorgeous!

The kids enjoyed peering through the window and watching the chocolate being made!

The toilets were spacious and a change table is available.  The staff were friendly, polite, and very helpful with the little ones.  The whole experience, from the yummy food and drinks, to watching the chocolate making and staring at the big machines, was very kid-friendly.  My only gripe would be that it took about 30 minutes from ordering for the food to arrive, fortunately for me the kids were pretty well behaved on the day.  Hopefully that's just a one-off, because we'd definitely love to visit again!  Oh why are all my favourite cafes to go with kids in Brunswick???



An understatement!



Eat.Play.Shop.Says : if you'd like to visit Monsieur Truffe with your kids, this is the place to go!

Toilets : Yes, with change table.

Highchair : they have only one, but it's a pretty cool one (maybe they can get more in the near future?  It's going to be a popular place for families methinks!)

Eat. @ Monsieur Truffe

90 Smith St, Collingwood 3066 ph : (03) 9416 3101

On a recent cold wintery day, we visited this specialty chocolatier in Collingwood for a sweet treat.  Nothing like a freezing cold and wet Melbourne morning to make you crave a cup of sweet smooth hot chocolate!

Much like the chocolate it offers, the shop induces a warm and cosy feeling.   By 10:30am, the little store was already full to the brim with weekend patrons sipping on warm cups of cocoa and indulging in sweet pastries.  Fortunately for us Bubs in Pram was asleep, so Hubby and I took the last seats at the counter and got busy ordering.

The 70% House Blend Hot Chocolate was smooth and seriously creamy.  One of the best in Melbourne.

Hubby had a mocha (for a change!)  This was more chocolatey than the usual mocha but surprisingly very pleasant.  Very creamy though, so not for the lactose intolerant!

The pastries are seriously flakey, and probably some of the best we've ever sampled.

We also sampled a few of their macarons.  The shells are made elsewhere, but the filling is made by Monsieur Truffe.  The Passion fruit one had a lovely flavour, and rather refreshing following our heavier drinks.  The Salted Caramel was also more chocolatey but the subtle caramel is still very nice.

There are also lots of goodies to take home.  A big range of chocolate bars, with a handy sample pack for $25.  The kids will be drawn to the chocolate ladybirds and umbrellas.  The truffles are apparently very good (unfortunately they didn't have any during our visit) and the pastries can all be bought for take-away. 

Chocolate bars, attractively displayed on the character
filled wooden shelves.

Quality chocolate to use as you please in the kitchen!

Drinking chocolate in tubes.

Cute teapots with little animal milk jugs.

Chocolate sample packs and chocolate kiddy fodder.

The menu has only a few savoury items available for lunch.  Monsieur Truffe recently opened up on Lygon St, with a bigger range on the menu, a roomier dining area, and its own chocolate making facilities.  It will probably be roomier for little ones - can't wait for our visit there!

Eat.Play.Shop. Recommends : the Hot Chocolate.  One of the best in Melbourne!

Give it a Miss : Down side would be limited space, and rather limited menu.

Toilet : Yes

Highchair : No