chocolate Archives - Page 2 of 6

April 17, 2017August 25, 2023

St Ali Coffee Roasters, South Melbourne

My cousin recommended us to try the iced filtered coffee at St Ali Coffee Roasters, which she spoken of highly. So, after our burger meal on a very nice Saturday, we headed to South Melbourne. It didn’t take long to get there by tram and a short stroll in the area. Even though the distance is not at all that far from CBD, South Melbourne surely has a different vibe. It is a lovely area, laid back and has so many local shops that offers many interesting items. And of course, all the hidden little shops inside those little lanes also can be found in the area.

St Ali is located in another alley, inside a looks-alike-ex-warehouse building. Once you entered the door, it is actually much spacious than it looks from the outside. There are crowds of people, graffiti on the walls, and smell of coffee and delicious looking cake displays near the cashier.

And as per the recommendation, we tried their iced filtered coffee, flat white and one of their yummy cake. The food menu actually looks very appetising and delicious, but unfortunately for us who just had our lunch, therefore the cake.

The recommended ice filtered coffee in bottle

I personally am not a big fan of the filtered coffee because it has that acidic after taste. But it sure is refreshing for that hot sunny weather. On the other hand, hubby thinks the filter coffee is great. I, however, love the flat white – smooth and slightly fruity.

From there, we walked to South Melbourne Market and it was delightful. A huge building, with many shops and stalls and so many people. A lot of the products sold here are local produce, or made by local artists/designers – everything are just exciting! And there is also the Padre Coffee stall there, which I really love their coffee. So of course, we had to buy couple bags of their coffee beans to bring home 🙂

St Ali Coffee Roasters

12-18 Yarra Pl, South Melbourne VIC 3205

Phone: (03) 9686 2990

stali.com.au

January 10, 2017August 13, 2023

Mushroom (Look Alike) Bread

First post for 2017, yeayy!!! Anyway, I have been thinking of trying this out since I saw this post weeks before Christmas and of course it was December, too much eating out and not enough me time in the kitchen, hence the delay. The first thing that caught my eyes was the beautiful topping pattern, and they do remind me of dried shiitake mushroom, right? To make them look more alike to mushroom, I should have used muffin pan. But since I didn’t, the only thing that resembles mushroom is just the topping.

I followed the source recipe completely, and here it is again:

For the bread:

350 grams bread flour
50 grams sugar
50 grams butter
20 grams milk powder
1.5 teaspoon dry instant yeast
4 grams salt
1 whole egg
150 ml cold milk

Mix all ingredients except butter and salt, knead until elastic before adding the remaining ingredients. Knead until form a smooth and elastic dough. Set aside for proofing for about 1 hour or until double in size. Once it is double in size, punch the dough to remove trapped gas and shaped into little balls, add your favorite filling to each. Then place them in the baking pan. At this time, we brush the topping with the chocolate paste.

Brush the topping before second proofing (left) and the result after second proofing, look at those cracks (right)

For the topping:

2 teaspoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons rice flour
4 teaspoons water

Mix well the ingredients into a thick paste. Brush this chocolate paste to the topping of each bread. Leave the bread for second proofing until it almost double in size and cracks appear on each topping.

Bake them on 180C for about 15 minutes and enjoy!

These smell very chocolaty when taken out of oven

Note:

I personally think the bread is not that soft, so maybe next time if I do make this again, I will use the trusted tangzhong method. Also, I might have applied the paste too thick on each bun, they tasted a bit too bitter. I am thinking maybe I should add pinch of sugar to the topping paste next time. Not sure though whether it will change the texture or anything.

Apart from that, I really love how these breads look (｡◕‿◕｡)

October 27, 2016September 16, 2023

Dukes Coffee Roasters and Doughboys Doughnuts Melbourne

There are many parks near by Melbourne CBD, isn’t it? There are several I wanted to go to, but today we decided to walk over to Southbank to The Royal Botanic Gardens. Thank goodness it was a fine day, clear blue sky and breezy – perfect weather for strolling! Let these photos tell the rest of the story 🙂 By the way, here is the link to lists of parks in CBD which I find very handy.

On the way back, we stopped at Dukes Coffee Roasters for a quick afternoon caffeine fix. We had a takeaway skim flat white again, but I feel the coffee tasted too bitter for my liking, it’s a strong hit on the tongue. A truly wake up punch 🙂

And to balance out the bitter coffee, we also stopped by Doughboys Doughnuts 😛 We seems to eat a lot on this trip and still barely enough to try all the places on my to-go-list! Probably because we came after 3 pm, there were not many doughnuts to choose from – might be all sold out for the day. These doughnuts are more of your typical doughnuts texture wise, with interesting flavor combinations and fillings. In that sense, they are different to ones at Shortstop. We both tend to prefer the Shortstop donuts better than ones here.

Mint Slice – we definitely prefer this one over the Matcha Pop ? Too busy eating that we forgot to take picture of the doughnut with cream filling.

Matcha Pop - We ordered this thinking it will pack with matcha flavours. Unfortunately, the filling turned out to be berry flavoured custard cream with couple pieces of lightly-matcha-coated popcorns toppings — Matcha Pop – We ordered this thinking it will pack with matcha flavours. Unfortunately, the filling turned out to be berry flavoured custard cream with couple pieces of lightly-matcha-coated popcorns toppings

Duke Coffee Roasters

247 Flinders Ln, Melbourne VIC 3000

Phone: 03 9417 5578

www.dukescoffee.com.au

Doughboys Doughnuts

535 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000

www.doughboysdoughnuts.com.au

October 9, 2016

Yarra Valley Wine Tasting Tour

October 1, 2016September 20, 2023

Shortstop Coffee and Donuts, Melbourne

We were heading back to City Tempo after lunch and while staring at the Google Map for directions, Shortstop suddenly popped up. As it turned out the location is very close to City Tempo, we made a quick stop at Shortstop for their famous donuts. Learned from previous experience, when it’s location is in a small street or lane, you just have to pay extra attention for name plague. But Shortstop on other hand is very easy to locate, you could not have missed the glass wall, crowd and display of beautiful donuts.

The cafe is quite small in size with minimalist interior and very few seating. We actually came here twice, this first time we just got the take away donuts. Then we dined in on the second time when it wasn’t as busy. When walking in, you’ll see a coffee counter and cashier counter next to it and then a glass display of each of the different flavoured donuts for the day. It was as if you are looking for antiquities display in a museum (｡◕‿◕｡)

And of course we must try the hyped Australian Honey And Sea Salt donut because it just so different to your usual donuts. Then hubby decided he wanted to try the Maple Walnut And Brown Butter one. We were too excited and forgot to take a close up pictures of these two and only remembered after we gobbled them down ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The honey and sea salt donut is certainly unique, both in flavour combination as well as the texture. It was less sweet than the other one, being balanced by the salt flakes. But the texture is just interesting, light and airy on the inside with crisp glazed on the outside. The maple walnut and brown butter donut is totally different to the former. This is more similar to your usual kind of donut in texture but the topping is very yummy. Mind you, it is very sweet – but then again, something you’d expect from a donut, right?

On our second trip here, we tried Boston Cream and Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake plus their coffee. They used Market Lane’s Seasonal; Blend beans. By the way, they have only whole milk for their coffees, but turned out really nice. Smooth and not too rich at all – we usually get flat while in skim because most of the time it is too creamy and rich otherwise. But the coffee here was very very good (read: memorable), even on whole milk. Both donuts are delicious and fluffy with sweet smooth cream filling inside.

These donuts are certainly not something you’d treat yourself everyday – not just they are sweet, they are not cheap either. But, I’d love to have them every once in a while and wash it down with a cup of their coffee.

Shortstop Coffee and Donuts

12 Sutherland St, Melbourne VIC 3000

Phone: (03) 0730 1730

short-stop.com.au