Macarons!

Hello all, it's been a while. Let me share with you the most popular sweet treat going around at the moment. The phenomenon of macarons! They've been around for two hundred years but in the past few years they have become a mainstream trend.

The popularity of macarons in Australia comes from the rise of Adriano Zumbo and his zumbarons. The first time I saw them I really wanted to try them but it wasn't until a week or so ago that I managed to get my hands on some.

So I made the trip down to Albury after I discovered Geoffrey Michael Patissier. It was worth the drive, I got these home and after looking at them for a while I decided to try one.

It's hard to express how I felt when I first bit into one. I didn't know what to expect from these colourful biscuits, I knew they were made from almond flour but nothing prepared me for the texture I experienced. The biscuit component itself has a type of crisp shell on it that gives way to a light and fluffy interior that almost seems to melt in your mouth but then it becomes delightfully chewy and has a satisfying mouth feel. They are unlike any biscuit I have ever eaten, such a paradox of textures.

The flavours were another thing again. The flavour of the biscuit is sweet but it's in the filling where the true flavour kicks in. Ranging from ganache to cream, the flavours are so delicious that I had a moment of wonderment when trying each of these flavours. The flavours were apricot, salted caramel, lavender berry, vanilla bean, choc hazelnut and strawberries and cream. It's hard to say which flavour I enjoyed the most, the lavender berry was an interesting one, never had lavender before, it was really nice. The salted caramel one was very distinctive, this flavour is something that's very popular right now and I enjoyed it. They were all amazing and I have trouble remembering each one in detail because I was in a state of bliss while I was eating them.

I am slightly ashamed to say that I ate every one you can see in the photo in one sitting. I meant to just try one of each but I couldn't stop and they were so light and cute I just munched them all. They're not cheap either so I felt a little guilty although it was such an awesome moment I can't regret it. Macarons rule!

Peanut Toffee Cookie Marvellous Creation

This one is a really bold statement as far as flavour goes, and it is my favourite of the three marvellous creations, let's take a look.

Starting with the chocolate, it's that distinct Cadbury flavour but it's actually a minor player in the flavour profile of this product, one of the major players is the peanut which has been dry roasted and only slightly crushed. The cookie portion adds a lot of texture to the pieces and is a nice vanilla flavour but the real secret to why I like this flavour is the toffee.

I've been seeing salted caramel used in a lot of things now and wondered what the fuss was about, but in this marvellous creation I understand why. The toffee has a distinctive saltiness that balances perfectly with the rich flavour of the peanut and the sweetness of the chocolate, plus it adds a third texture to the chocolate pieces which makes every bite different. Delicious!

So much going on in this bar and I enjoy eating it. I do buy this fairly often, I will talk about the third flavour at a later date and the problems arising out of using certain types of products in chocolate.

Hot Fudge Sundae Poptarts

Hi there, it's been quite a while since I've posted but I hope to post more frequently from now on, so here's my first one, Hot Fudge Sunday Poptarts!

I was quite excited to try this flavour because they are part of the Ice Cream Shoppe series which is related to the Rainbow Cookie Sandwich which I loved. These are frosted unlike the Rainbow ones and as I've said before the frosting doesn't really do anything for me, it hardly registers as you eat them.

Anyway, now to the delicious part, the filling! This is what I was looking for, great flavour, a sweet vanilla taste yummo.

Now to something I learnt while eating the first of these poptarts, the chocolate pastry doesn't really work. It seems a bit bitter and a little bland, maybe it would be easier to eat if the pastry was a little softer or maybe it just needs to taste a bit better. When eaten with the filling, the casing tastes nice, but the corners weren't as nice.

Overall I'd say it's a nice poptart, but I prefer the plain pastry which gives the filling the focus in the flavour profile.

Shorties!

Hi there, these have been out for quite a while, but I saw them in the shop today and remembered how good they are.

Biscuit shorties from Cadbury, these are part of a product line that are mostly minaturized versions of regular products like Flakes (soo good), except for these ones lol.

These are quite addictive, great texture too, the chocolate is the distinctive flavour of Cabury. The secret lies within the shortbread style centre. The centre is light for shortbread but still quite rich with a vanilla flavour, delicious!

On the more expensive side in that the bags are around 150g (165g in this case) for the same price as a regular block, but they're worth it for a nice change. A bag of these won't last long lol.

Sweet Wishes from Tim Tam

Unless your'e Australian you may not realize how much of an institution Tim Tams are. Original Tim Tams I may discuss in the future, but today it's Double Choc Caramel, oh yeah.

I'm a big fan of caramel, and these biscuits don't disappoint when it comes to a hit of caramel flavour, delicious!

Where to start, firstly you have the chocolate on the outside very nice, good quality chocolate and the fact that its 'doubled' means that it adds a really nice cool smooth texture the the Tim Tam. I heard a guy who works in the factory say that it takes less power to make the double Tim Tams because they don't need to blast them with a fan to get the texture of the original lol.

Now, the caramel in the centre is tasty and a nice caramel hit, but it's with the biscuit itself where this becomes a great Flavour.

The biscuit is a well balanced caramel flavour giving the overall Tim Tam a more restrained richness then you would imagine making them easier to eat without the sickly sweet feeling.

Good good.

Mini Drops

Hello, when I saw these advertised the first thing I thought was mini eggs for ever! Not quite in this instance but still an exciting new product in Cadbury Mini Drops.

I didn't know what to expect really when I opened these, but I was still surprised at how small these are, about the size of an M&M except in a raindrop shape. They have a glazed surface like Smarties and contain Cadbury chocolate. Really fun to eat, colourful and delicious!

Having said that, eating them one by one, unless you concentrate, you don't get the distinctive Cadbury taste, not sure why but it still tastes good, maybe the chocolate has less cocoa solids in it I don't know.

The shell is sweet but not very thick so it doesn't add any flavour or texture, just colour lol.

Very addictive, I had no problem finishing these off. I'll probably get these again though they are a more middle priced, good good.

Cadbury steps up

Well, it looks like Cadbury has been busy thinking up new ways of presenting chocolate, this is great! I mean block chocolate is good and there are a ridiculous amount of varieties but more innovation is just what the block world needs, and with the new Marvellous Creations range Cadbury has made an exciting offering.

The first variety I have tried is this Jelly popping candy beanies. A mouthful to say and a mouthful to eat! The first thing that strikes you about these new blocks is the irregular pattern. I forsee many disagreements over who got how much lol, most pieces are roughly the same size but some are larger. Also the pieces are quite deep and have different textures on top so it's nothing like eating a normal piece of block chocolate.

Now, the flavour, the chocolate is always nice with it's distinct Cadbury taste, the jelly pieces are like small soft strawberry flavoured gummi beans and they stand out in the flavour profile, they do get into your teeth a bit though which can detract from the chocolate. The beanies are like Smarties and add a crunchy texture, but the real fun is in the popping candy which are similar to Pop Rox. The candy doesn't add any flavour really but turns the eating of chocolate into a new experience that's more fun and frivolous, probably not for the die hard chocolate traditionalists but I like it. Delicious!

A strong opening, there are two or three other flavours which I will take a look at in the future.