Kit Kat Cake

For my husband’s birthday this year, I thought that I’d bake him a cake. It was so hard deciding what to bake and in the end I decided to make a Kit Kat cake.

For the cake part, I decided to make a vanilla cake with peanut butter filling and chocolate icing. I used Sally’s Baking Blog very vanilla cupcake recipe but made it into a cake and then randomly made up the peanut butter filling. 

  
Unfortunately I stuffed up the icing because it was too bitter so I had to peel the icing off the cake. I had put too much cocoa powder in the icing and I only realised it was too bitter when tasted some. This was such a disaster for me because I had such a short amount of time left, so I resorted to buying store bought icing. The store bought icing tasted gross, I will never buy that again. 

The disasters didn’t stop there, I didn’t buy enough packets of Kit Kats and the Kit Kats kept splitting in half when I snapped them off the bar. I had to go back to the supermarket to buy more. I’ve learnt that next time I’ll have to buy the individual packets because they don’t have the break indent in the centre.  

The next disaster was that I only just realised that I didn’t have any masculine coloured ribbon, so I ended up using pink ribbon. 

Eventually the cake was completed and whilst it didn’t look perfect, it did look okay.

  
Thankfully when the cake was cut later that day, it looked and tasted great. I was so relieved! 

I might actually try to make this again one day soon, at least this time I can learn from my mistakes. 

x

Mini Nutella Donut from Voglia Di Pane Fine Italian Bakery

After my disastrous Tella Ball incident, I was determined to find the best Nutella donut in Sydney. My friend suggested that I visit Voglia Di Pane Fine Italian Bakery in Woodpark, so I decided to make a trip down there with my baby today.

Woodpark was a suburb that I had never heard about before and surprisingly it only took me half an hour to get there. 

When I got to Dell Street, I noticed that there were a few different shops and further up near the end of the shopping strip was Voglia Di Pane Fine Italian Bakery. Lucky for me I got parking right outside the bakery.

  
Voglia Di Pane Fine Italian Bakery is a small bakery, I noticed that they sold bread, cakes, the odd sandwich and coffee. When I got there, there were a few people inside, but unlike my visit to Foodcraft, I didn’t have to wait long to be served. 

   

I naturally made an immediate bee line for the Nutella donuts and had a look, the donuts looked so good. My senses were on sugar over load.

 
I decided to be very good and only buy two mini Nutella donuts. Even though the Nutella donuts were called mini, they were actually the perfect size. 

  
I decided that I couldn’t wait to go home to try one, so I ate immediately one ..then Umm two. 

  From the first bite, I was so impressed at how soft and chewy the Nutella donut tasted. I was quite happy that the donut had a generous amount of Nutella inside. Part of me wanted to go back inside to buy more Nutella donuts, but I decided to be good.
I am so happy that I got my Nutella Donut redemption. At only $1.50 each, this Nutella donut is a bargain! 

I will be back! 

Voglia Di Pane Fine Italian Bakery is located at: 35 Dell Street Woodpark NSW 2164

Phone: 9892 1112

Espresso Sydney

I would like to say that Espresso Sydney will be the death of me..! This cafe sells Pasticceria Papa ricotta cheesecake and is so close to my work place. Dangerous!! For two weeks or so I’ve been trying to avoid stopping at the cafe by walking very fast past the cafe, but today I caved in and had a look.

Espresso Sydney is my kind of heaven, they sell so many Pasticceria Papa goodies such as their ricotta cheesecake, biscuits, muffins and cannoli. 

  
  
This morning I decided be naughty, so I ordered a hot chocolate and a Pasticceria Papa Nutella muffin. 

  
The Pasticceria Papa Nutella muffin was so delicious, the muffin was so moist and it had a delicious dollop of Nutella in the centre of the muffin. My hot chocolate was not to my liking possibly because of the milk they used and the flavour was not that great. I didn’t not end up drinking the rest of the hot chocolate. 

The staff at the cafe told me that they get a Pasticceria Papa ricotta cheesecake delivered everyday and the cake usually sells out by the end of the day. 

I think I might have to cave in and buy a slice of the Pasticceria Papa ricotta cheesecake one day because I love that cheesecake so much. 

Espresso Sydney is located at: 

40 Park Street Sydney. (Next to the doctors surgery)

Nestle Kit Kat Studio-Create your own break

I am certainly no stranger when it comes to the hype of new things, so when I found out that I could create my own Kit Kat, I may have gotten quite excited.

The Nestle Kit Kat Studio- Create your break is a new and exciting pop up stall on level 2 of Westfield Sydney. The stall has been opened from the 4th August and is open until 30th August. 

When I arrived at the stall, the line was quite long, but I was determined to wait. I was informed that it would take 20 mins to line up to make the order and then 3 hours for your personalised Kit Kat to be ready. Once your personalised Kit Kat is ready for collection, you will receive a text. 

  
Whilst I lined up, I had a thorough read of the menu which gave me plenty of time to think about what I wanted to put in my Kit Kat. 

  

  

To personalise your own Kit Kat, you choose what sort of chocolate you want ( White, milk chocolate or dark) and then choose three ingredients from the list on the menu.  I decided to make a white chocolate Kit Kat with caramelised meringue, finely shredded toasted coconut and golden honeycomb shards. Once you have selected your ingredients, you could then also have your own name printed on the box.

After 1 hour I received a text notifying me that my personalised Kit Kat was ready for collection, I ended up picking up the Kit Kat after work. 

 My personalised Kit Kat tasted really nice, I was so happy with the combination. It tasted so good that I could’ve easily eaten the whole thing. 

 
I would love to go back and make another personalised Kit Kat, I really love the concept. 

If you don’t feel like waiting, you can purchase unique pre-made Kit Kat flavours for $4, the flavours vary from day to day. Eg- Peanut Butter and Creme Brûlée 

The Nestle Kit Kat Studio- Create your break is located at:

Westfield Sydney, Level 2 (opposite Gap) Pitt Street Mall Entrance Sydney CBD.

Cost: $9 (card payments only)

Opening time: 9:30am Monday- Sunday. 

Tella Balls Nutella Shake from Foodcraft Espresso and Bakery

For weeks now all I have heard about and read on social media is posts about these famous donuts called Tella Balls and the Tella Shake from Foodcraft Espresso and Bakery, I decided to go check it out to see if the hype is really worth it.

Finding the place was not too hard and lucky for me I found parking outside. Whilst waiting for my friend, I wandered inside to check out the donuts. I took a look at the donuts and noticed that they had a few different varieties but were sold out of the salted caramel and the vanilla bean ricotta donuts. There were however tonnes of the Nutella version left. The Tella Balls looked so delicious.,

  
Shortly after when my friend arrived, we were allocated a seat. We both agreed that we would order the Tella Ball Nutella Shake. The Tella Ball Nutella Shake took a while to arrive because they were quite busy. When the Tella Ball Nutella Shake arrived we were in awe of its beauty, it looked so delicious. The fun part was trying to figure out how to eat and drink it, we decided to take a bite of the ball first. Our reactions after eating the Tella Ball were quite similar, we both didn’t seem impressed with the Tella Ball. We thought that the Tella Ball was too dense and cakey, we really were expecting a more fluffy donut. My Tella Ball also did not have much Nutella in it, but my friend’s one did. The shake part however was very tasty and hard to finish.

  
Fourty five minutes later, our food finally arrived. We both agreed that we didn’t like what we ordered so we didn’t finish eating our lunch. 

When were about to leave, the table next to us told us that they have been waiting one hour for their lunch. 

We left the cafe without buying any Tella Balls to take home. Such a shame!

Doesn’t seem like this cafe had many happy customers today, we certainly were not too impressed.

If you have eaten the Tella Balls, what were your thoughts?

Foodcraft Espresso and Bakery is located at: 33 Bridge Street, Erskineville NSW 2043

Phone: 8971 8817

*Limited street parking outside the cafe, trying parking on George Street.

Strawberry Golden Gaytime

Whilst wandering through my local Coles supermarket, I noticed that Streets have also released new flavours of Golden Gaytime on a stick, there were three new flavours, chocolate, strawberry and mint. Being the sucker that I am for new things, I decided to buy the Strawberry Golden Gaytime. 

The Strawberry Golden Gaytime is basically strawberry and vanilla ice cream coated in the famous Golden Gaytime chocolate and biscuit crumb coating. I thought that despite being quite disappointed with the tub version, this version might redeem itself. 

  
I was wrong.. 

The Strawberry Golden Gaytime was a huge let down, the strawberry ice cream part did not taste nice at all, in fact I thought it tasted too artificial. I actually couldn’t finish eating it and my husband refused to eat anymore because he didn’t like the taste at all. Nobody has time for wasted calories.

  
My Twitter friend S tried the mint version and she didn’t like it either and she is apparently a huge fan of mint ice cream.

So I think I have really learnt my lesson now, I shall not be buying anymore Golden Gaytime ice cream ever again! (Original version being the exception)

Now who wants to eat all my left over ice cream? 

Grumpy Donuts

Donuts seem to be the new food fad of 2015, there are so many cafes and companies making hand crafted donuts. The one company  that seemed to capture my attention was Grumpy Donuts because of their funny grumpy logo and delicious looking donuts. Being the kind of person who loves trying new things, I couldn’t not resist ordering donuts from Grumpy Donuts.

I found out about Grumpy Donuts from one of the food bloggers, I decided to wait a while and then make an order for their donuts when my friend was back at work. Two weeks ago Grumpy Donuts had opened up new delivery dates, I didn’t want to wait so I immediately jumped online to make an order. I ended up choosing the delivery date of 31/7/15. The only issue that I found when ordering online was the fact that you had to order a minimum of 9 donuts, so I forced myself to order 9 donuts. (Oh the torture lol).

Choosing which donuts to order was so hard, all the donuts looked so good and I wanted to try all of them. I ended up ordering the Buttered Toast, S’mores, Maple Bacon Bar, Original Glazed and Oreo Vanilla Ring. 

My donuts got delivered to my workplace in the morning, I was so excited to see all the delicious donuts. The donuts looked so delicious and the scent of freshly baked donuts captivated the room. 

  

*excuse my bad photo, my office has poor lighting

I ended giving my friend S the Original Glazed donut and he was so impressed with how good the donut tasted. My other friend G bought the S’mores donut off me and he too was so impressed. 

As soon as I had time to spare, I tried the Buttered Toast donut. I really loved this donut and it was my favourite out of all the donuts. The Buttered Toast donut was so delicious, the brioche crumbs, the glaze and the butter combination tasted so good and was not too sweet at all. The texture of the donut was perfect, it was not too heavy and was deliciously soft. 

I ended up trying the Maple Bacon Bar donut after lunch and I have to say that that out of all the donuts, I liked this one the least. I wasn’t a fan of the maple flavoured icing, but I did love the smokey candied bacon. My bestie did not like this donut either.

For the rest of the donuts, I ended up sharing them amongst work colleagues because I was all donutted out. My work colleagues all loved the donuts and they wanted more. 

In my opinion and the opinion of my friends and work colleagues, Grumpy Donuts are the best donuts that we have ever eaten. I will definitely make another order for more Grumpy Donuts soon, I just have to be healthy for while. 

Grumpy Donuts website:

http://www.grumpydonuts.com/#main
Follow them on Instagram for delivery updates: @grumpydonutsofficial  

Mrs C’s Cupcakes

For weeks now I gave been hearing and reading about Mrs C’s Cupcakes. I read a few articles that have said that Jackie O from Kiss FM reckons that Mrs C’s Cupcakes are the best, I decided that I would go visit the shop and make up my own mind.

I have driven passed this cupcake shop a few times when I had to drive my husband to work, but I never thought of going to try their cupcakes because I prefer baking my own cupcakes. This afternoon I decided that I would drop by the shop and buy a few to try.

When I arrived at Mrs C’s Cupcakes, I was immediately drawn and amused by the quote of the chalk board. 

  
I headed into the shop and was warmly greeted by a lovely man at the counter. I noticed on the menu board that the sold a lovely variety of cupcakes. 

  
I asked the man working there which cupcake was his favourite and he said his favourite was the Lemon Meringue, because I am not a fan of lemon flavoured cupcakes I opted to buy the Cookies and Cream and the Chocolate Rocher. It was quite hard narrowing down to choosing only two cupcakes, because they all looked delicious. 

  
I decided to take the cupcakes home and eat them for dessert. 

After dinner I immediately tried the cupcakes. 

 
Both cupcakes were so incredibly moist and they both didn’t have any dry bits like other store bought cupcakes that I had bought. The cupcakes and the icing were not too sweet. I personally preferred the Cookies and Cream cupcake because the icing was so light.

I was so happy that the cupcakes were nice, because I was so sick of eating bad cupcakes. 

I will definitely be coming back to try their other cupcakes soon! 

Mrs C’s Cupcakes are located at: 

367 High Street Penrith

Golden Gaytime ice cream in a tub

Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s I used to love eating Golden Gaytime ice cream, it was so much fun to bite off the biscuit crumbed chocolate coating  and then slowly eat the creamy toffee flavoured ice cream. Golden Gaytime and Bubble O’Bill were my two favourite ice creams in those days. These days I will confess that I do not eat these two ice creams that much because I have developed more adult tastes for gelato. 

Yesterday I read a post on Facebook announcing that Streets will be releasing a tub version of the Golden Gaytime ice cream, I was naturally immediately excited and vowed to head down to the supermarket as soon as my husband brings the car home. 

The first supermarket I went to was Woolworths and they did not have any in stock, I then went to IGA and noticed that they did stock the chocolate version. I was not too keen on buying the chocolate version, but I did anyway. 

The chocolate version of the Golden Gaytime ice cream in a tub was very disappointing, the chocolate ice cream looked pale in comparison to the photo and the ice cream itself tasted quite bland. The addition of biscuit crumbs to the ice cream did nothing for it.  

 

The next day I was determined to find the original version of the Golden Gaytime ice cream in a tub, so I drove to the nearest Coles Supermarket. When I got to the supermarket fridge, there was only two tubs left, I was so over joyed that I managed to get one of the last tubs. When I got home tried some and I did not feel too excited about it. The biggest let down for me was that just like the chocolate version, the biscuit crumbs were imbedded into the ice cream. I think that it would be been better if the biscuit crumbs were on the top and middle of the ice cream kind of like a crust, with the addition of a thin layer of chocolate like the one on the stick version.

 
 
I’ll be quite honest and say that I will not be going to buy another tub of the ice cream in the near future, if I feel like eating a Golden Gaytime, I might just buy the stick version. 

I feel so disappointed! What do you lovelies think?

Golden Gaytime in a tub is currently available at Coles and IGA.