Koko Black Sydney

For many years now, I have been a huge fan of Koko Black and every time I visit one of their stores I always ask when are they going to open up a store in Sydney. Luckily for me, two stores opened up in Sydney a few months ago.

Considering I have been waiting a long time for Koko Black to open up a store in Sydney, you would think they I would one of the first people to visit these stores, but strangely I only managed to make a visit last week. (I blame the fact that I have a baby lol).

Koko Black has opened up two stores, one is located inside the QVB and the other in the Strand Arcade. I have not been to the QVB store, but I did manage to find time during my lunch break to visit the Strand Arcade store. The Strand Arcade store is located where Bon Bon Chocolate used to be.

The Strand Arcade store has two glorious levels, the top level is where they sell their chocolate and downstairs is the café. The café downstairs is not as big as the Melbourne or Canberra stores, but it still has the same sort of menu.

When I walked down the stairs to the café, the room smelt like hot chocolate. The service is quite efficient and friendly. Luckily when I went it was not busy.

I chose a seat and looked at the menu, there was so much to choose from. I was feeling quite full after devouring a burger and chips from Mary’s, so I ended up only ordering a piece of Chocolate Alchemy Gâteau cake. The Chocolate Alchemy Gâteau cake is described as “our signature chocolate cake layered with Madagascan chocolate creme, dark chocolate mousse and a chewy chocolate caramel”.

The Chocolate Alchemy Gâteau cake was absolutely divine, it tasted quite chocolatey and rich. I did not end up eating the whole cake which certainly unusual for me. I was especially quite fond of the chocolate soil that was scattered on the plate.

Unfortunately I only had time to have a quick look at the chocolate upstairs and I bought 50 grams of the marshmallow Madagascan vanilla bean chocolate from the inclusions range.

Hopefully one day I will have time to also visit the QVB store, my sister in law said the QVB store is a lot smaller.

I cannot decide if having Koko Black in Sydney is a good or bad thing, my waist line suggest it could be a bad thing lol.

Koko Black’s website: 

http://www.kokoblack.com/

QVB store:

Shop 3, Ground Floor, Queen Victoria Building

445 George Street Sydney NSW 2000

Strand Arcade store:

Cnr of Pitt Street Mall and Strand Arcade, Sydney NSW

Strand Arcade, 412 – 414 George Street Sydney NSW 2000)

Chocolate Chip and Oat Slice

I have found a new recipe to obsess over, I am obsessed with baking chocolate chip and oat slice and it is semi healthy right?

The other day whilst shopping at Coles, I noticed that these chocolate chip and oat slice bars were half price, so I bought a packet. Over the next few days I could not stop eating them and consequently I ran out of supplies, at this moment I decided that I would find a recipe and make them myself.

I ended up finding a easy recipe and I made them straight away. The chocolate chip and oat slice ended tasting so good and slightly healthy and I ended up baking them for quite a few days afterwards. I was addicted!

I ended up changing the recipe a few times, I ended up adding more chocolate chips and I also used shredded coconut rather than desiccated coconut.

The recipe actually suggests you add dried sultanas, but I skipped this ingredient because I do not liked dried fruit.

The chocolate chip and oat slice can be found on this website:

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/2706/choc+chip+and+oat+slice

Revealed: My Baby’s 1st Birthday Cake

Sorry I have not be around here much, I have been so busy planning my Baby’s first birthday.

I am not sure if you remember, but I was finding it so hard in deciding what sort of birthday cake to make for my Baby’s first birthday. I finally decided upon a Batman themed chocolate and nutella piñata cake. I ended up sourcing ideas from the internet and used two websites to help me make the cake.

I will admit that I was slightly scared of making this cake, I had never used fondant before and silly me only decided to work with it on the day I was planning to make the cake. Luckily my husband volunteered to help cut out the shapes, because I knew that I would be very good at doing this.

The cake part was pretty straight forward, I used the Triple Chocolate Layer cake from Sally’s Baking addiction and then added a piñata twist to the cake.

The fondant part of the cake was really frustrating to make and at times I thought I would never get it done, thankfully I did. I also found trying to place icing on the cake perfectly to be an impossible mission.

Here is my cake…

In typical clumsy me style. I had a cake accident before we got to the venue, the cake tipped off the cake stand and some icing landed on my dress! I almost died… lucky the damage was not major.

The piñata part of the cake worked out really well when it was cut. I wish I had brought my own sharper knife, because the restaurant’s knife was not sharp and it made it hard to cut the cake,

Sorry about the photography.. I blame my brother

I also got told by everyone that the cake tasted really good and this made me feel so happy, there is nothing worse than a cake that looks good but tastes dry.

So there you go, I successfully made a birthday cake!  (big sigh of relief)

The instructions on how to make the Batman cake decorations can be found on this website:

http://domesticfits.com/2012/10/31/super-simple-batman-cake-with-free-printable-templates/