A day of star spotting

Masterchef is the programme of the moment in Australia and each week the contestants have to cook-off against a famous chef. This week the contestants had to re-create a macaron tower made by Adriano Zumbo, famous in Sydney not only for his macarons, but also for his wonderfully inventive cakes and pastries.

Check out the tower from Masterchef here: http://www.masterchef.com.au/macaron-tower-with-kalamata-olive-and-beetroot-and-raspberry-macarons.htm

We had been planning to take a trip to his shop in Balmain for a couple of weeks, and this week was the one in which we finally managed to do it. Unfortunately for us, so had the rest of Sydney, due to Adriano being on Masterchef! 

We ended up queuing for over an hour to get in the tiny little shop, which was full of delicious, mouth-watering treats. We did see Lote Tuqiri (this made Dave's day) though and Adriano Zumbo himself too, which made the wait a little less painful.

Dave, always with eyes bigger than his stomach, decided that he couldn't just get one cake for himself - no he had to get two, plus macarons and a quiche for lunch. 

He chose the Shabalicious - caramel crunch, caramel sponge, caramel cheesecake, caramel chew & caramel cream cheese mousse, and the appetisingly green What a Great Pear of - almond creme, pear vanilla creme patisserie, pate a choux sable, pear gel, almond crunch & almond streusel.

I opted for the Got no Grains - oatmeal creme, toasted spelt mousse, maple gel, sesame nougatine & muesli bar. We also chose six macarons. $41 poorer - yes $41 - we walked happily out of the shop and took our cakes to devour in the park. 

On the left is Got no Grains, on the right What a Great Pear of, and at the bottom, Shabalicious.

Eating the cakes was by no means an easy task and we both ended up very messy.

However, divine does not even begin to describe how delicious these cakes were! So delicious that I munched half way through mine, declared myself as feeling very sick, but carried on until the end because I couldn't bear to throw such deliciousness away. I then managed a macaron too (not as delicious - avocado and green tea flavour - a bit weird).

On a massive sugar high, and then low, we managed to somehow get ourselves home. And eat two more macarons about half an hour later. What a Great Pear of is being saved for this evening. Hollow legs?? Or just plain greedy...