1. Jeff de Bruges Chocolates

My Chocolate Radar must be in need of tuning. It can be the only explanation to how I managed NOT to see this shop even though I was practically standing in front of it. Yesterday B and I walked down Pitt Street Mall on the way to the Rocks to do the BridgeClimb. Waiting to cross King Street, I stood there chortling at the TITANIC : THE MUSICAL billboard, and it took B to point out that several feet below that board was a little chocolate shop. Well sink my battleship, how long has this shop been there for?!

Of course I had to go inside, and naturally, step out again with a small selection of nicely packaged chocolates in hand. As Selena would know, I call this ardous process “research”.

2. Luneburger

Equally impaired is my Bakery Radar. I have been walking past this German bakery in the QVB for quite some time now, without sensing it’s presence. I think the problem was that it’s located so close to the station that I usually ignore whatever is around me, in my desperate dash to catch a train. So I only found out about the place through someone else’s blog. The reason why I’m quite excited about this place is that I love German pretzels (or bretzels) and until now, couldn’t find a decent one in Sydney (there was a bakery in Canberra, but then it disappeared..). The ones at Lüneburger are very good!

3. Le Renaissance

When it comes to pastries and cakes, Gabby knows what she’s talking about. Her light mousse cakes and glossy chocolate creations have won the hearts and admiration of many a man (that she’s a bit of a looker, helps too, I’m sure). So when Gabby says, “Go to Le Renaissance.. they are one of the best in Sydney”, I listen and go.

This little patisserie and cafe is located in the Rocks, opposite Pony restaurant. On display are a range of luscious cakes (large sized, single serve, and petit four sized) and pastries – all of which look so mouth-watering that I take awhile to decide what to get. Apart from the sweet stuff, they also serve savouries such as meat pies which you can have in the courtyard or out the front. “$6 for a meat pie!” a lady behind me scoffed to her friends, as she walked right out of the shop. But if their cakes are anything to go by, I just might have to return to try one of those!

Jeff de Bruges
106 King Street
Sydney 2000

Lüneburger
Shop 72, Lower Ground Floor
The Queen Victoria Building
455 George Street
Sydney 2000

Le Renaissance
47 Argyle Street
The Rocks
Sydney 2000

[Incidentally, the BridgeClimb was great. We chose the twilight option, and so got to see the city in it’s daylight glory, then descended the bridge in darkness with an expansive view of the sparkling city all around us. While we were climbing the bridge, the Australian Idol Final was being played out in front of the Opera House, and just as we reached the top, an explosion of fireworks lit up the sky. I think it’s the closest I’ve ever been to a firework display.]

I could eat Christmas cake any day of the year, but Christmas time is the only time I can really be bothered to make it. It’s a heavy-ish sort of cake, knee-deep in fruit, and that hint like a sly wink, of brandy. It’s probably not suited to our climate here in Australia, but you only need a small slice of this to get into the spirit of the festive season.

As part of the Festive Food Fair, conceived by Anna of Morsels and Musings, I baked this cake a week or two ago, wrapped it up tightly after it’s drink of brandy and have now broken the seal to taste the cake. It’s fabulous!

The recipe is from Stephanie Alexander’s Cooks Companion. Don’t be put off by the amount of ingredients you need to weigh up. It’s easy to put the batter together once the fruit is macerated, and my favourite bit is the drizzling of the extra alcohol once it’s out of the oven. The cake just sponges it up like sozzled relatives on a hot Christmas day. Smaller versions of this cake can also be made, wrapped in gold paper and secured with a flourish of a bow to give away as presents to friends. No iPod soundtrack is needed for making this cake either. I hummed my way through The Twelve Days of Christmas while preparing this mammoth cake, and still can’t remember if it’s six or seven lords-a-leaping.

Christmas Cake from Margaret :

270g sultanas, roughly chopped
270g currants
270g raisins, chopped
120g Australian dried apricots, chopped
60g prunes, stoned and chopped
140ml brandy
270g softened unsalted butter
60g mixed peel
40g slivered almonds
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
250g dark brown sugar
5 large eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon black treacle or golden syrup
whole blanched almonds for decoration

Put dried fruit into a large glass or ceramic bowl and add 100ml of the brandy. Soak overnight. Next day, preheat oven to 150’C (if you have a fan-forced oven, preheat it to 140’C). Grease a 22cm x 7cm deep round cake tin well with 20g of the butter and line with a double thickness of baking paper or brown paper.

Put mixed peel and slivered almonds into a large bowl and coat with a little of the flour to prevent clumping. Sift remaining flour with baking powder and spices. Cream brown sugar and remaining butter in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs and flour mixture alternately, then add soaked fruit, treacle, and almond mixture. Mix well. Turn mixture into prepared tin and scoop centre into a slight hollow to allow for rising. Place whole almonds in a circular pattern around edges of cake.

Bake for 3 hours. Insert a fine skewer and, if it does not come out clean, reduce oven to 110’C and check again after 15 minutes. When cooked, remove from oven and drizzle remaining brandy over cake. Allow to cool completely in tin before turning out. Wrap cake in several layers of greaseproof paper and then in foil and store in an airtight cake tin until Christmas Day.

To start with the end of the day, we had dinner at Le Gavroche and rather unexpectedly, found it to be the best meal we had in London. I actually thought the Fat Duck would lay claim to this, hands down, but while the Fat Duck was great and very interesting, the food we had at Le Gavroche was amazing, and the service so warm and friendly, that it is to this restaurant that I would want to return, and not the Fat Duck. There are very few places that I’ve come across, that are able to blow you away on the strength of their sauces alone. The chocolate sauce on the hare dish I had was rich, unctuous and so beautiful, as was the golden hollandaise on the gratin of snails and langoustines. Like the memory of having your first oyster, I’ll never forget those tender, buttery snails.

As we were in a french restaurant, I also couldn’t go past the apple tarte tatin with it’s little toffee thatch and quenelle of creamy vanilla bean ice-cream that the waiter scooped from a silver container, at the table. When I ran out of ooh’s, I moved on to aah’s, every time they brought a dish over. Each dish arrived covered by a silver domed lid which was lifted briefly for your viewing pleasure, before being quietly placed on the table, then the lid completely removed with a flourish. It’s all a little bit frou-frou but seemed so appropriate to the occasion that I enjoyed all the theatrics.

We actually started the day with a trip to the Tate Modern. The main attraction there at the time was the Carsten Höller installation in the Turbine Hall : a series of slides which you can ride down. Being school holidays, the entire place was teaming with kids taking great interest in Piero Manzoni’s Canned Poo, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, Francis Bacon’s Reclining Woman, Juan Muñoz’s Towards the Corner, etc. The most popular was of course the slides which were booked out by noon, so B and I (the bigger kids) didn’t get a chance to have a go.

It was way past lunch time when we exited the Tate Modern, so we picked up some pork pies from Harrods to eat along the way and salivated over the cake displays at Patisserie Valerie…

..before going to visit Rod who works at Green’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar. As Fortnum & Mason was also in the area, we dropped in to check out the food hall. The chocolate and glace fruit counters were the most impressive, being knee-deep with customers queueing for a box or small bag of this and that. Display shelves dotting the floorspace also yielded the usual branded teas, jams, honey and more unusual objects like packaged fried crickets and scorpions. By the time we had to leave to make another appointment, I had with me, a bag containing two jams and some novelty coloured sugar.

The appointment we had was with an electric breadmaker which we wanted to get for N & M as a thank you present. A reliable source had told us that this was something M had been considering getting for himself. Being unfamiliar with London, it took us forever to find a place that sold such a thing. Finally with the help of the internet and Google Maps via B’s phone, we stumbled into an Argos store, made the purchase, then were on our way to Le Gavroche for dinner. It was raining by that stage, so while B negotiated the large package, I was appointed chief provider of shelter. The small umbrella and my short stature didn’t help matters and I was soon fired from my position by an irate and increasingly damp B. But all was forgiven when we reached Le Gavroche’s front door where we were ushered into the warmth and dry, and proceeded to have a most fantastic meal.

Tate Modern
Bankside
London SE1 9TG

Fortnum & Mason
181 Piccadilly
London W1A 1ER

Le Gavroche
43 Upper Brook Street
Marble Arch
London W1K 7QR

Next : Day 6 : Hinds Head, Fat Duck.