In the US, or at least in my little pocket of Indiana, Cadbury chocolate only comes out once per year – at Easter.  While I spent the vast majority of my life in the US, I didn’t even know Cadbury made anything else but Creme Eggs.  The realization that Cadbury makes other chocolates came during a class trip to Europe, where I saw Cadbury-everything.  Wow!

Now living in Australia, it is obvious that Cadbury is one of the most popular – if not the most popular – brand of chocolate.  Cadbury chocolate comes in all different varieties, from the good old Dairy Milk milk chocolate block, to Turkish Delight, to Mousse chocolate blocks.

Recently, Cadbury Australia offered to send me products from their new range of baking chocolate to try at home, of which I was super excited about.  It didn’t take long to choose some recipes to make with the chocolate; I took one look at the milk chocolate cheesecake on the front of one of the packages and knew I’d be making it!  Another recipe I chose came from Cadbury Kitchen, where each recipe has been tested to ensure your success at home.

There is nothing like a big box of chocolate to make you happy!  In the box was each product from Cadbury Australia’s new baking chocolate range.  I think the packaging looks fantastic – I just love that dark purple!  They also included a beautiful large tea-towel, which is pictured underneath the chocolate, above.

First, I made the milk chocolate cheesecake, which is pictured on the front of the big milk chocolate baking block.  If you’re a little timid about baking cheesecakes, you can relax with this one – it doesn’t need to be baked!  The list of ingredients is easy and simple, and the preparation is a breeze.  I did have one relatively minor issue with the recipe, however.  The base of the cheesecake is a chocolate biscuit/cookie-crumb base (I used Arnott’s Ripple biscuits).  The recipe says to grease the springform pan, and I did that.  I briefly considered placing some baking paper on the bottom though in case the base would stick, but in the end, I just followed the recipe.  When it came time to slice the cake, I found that the base stuck solidly to the pan.  I nearly had to transfer the slice of cheesecake to the plate, then pick the biscuit base off the bottom of the pan with a fork and place it on the plate next to the cheesecake!  Next time, I will definitely use that baking paper, and I recommend that you do as well.

So how did the no-bake cheesecake taste?  Amazing!  It was a hot day that I made the cake, and I thought it was perfect to cool off with for dessert.  The texture was smooth and velvety, almost mousse-like.  It’s a very impressive cake that would work for dinner parties as well, and because it’s so quick and easy it’s no problem to make at the last minute (but mind the 2-hour setting time in the refrigerator).

Inspired by the picture on the front of the packaging, I also made some (rather large) chocolate curls to decorate the slices.

Luckily, I was able to get most of the biscuit base on this slice for the photo!

You can find the recipe for this Milk Chocolate Cheesecake at Cadbury Kitchen, as well as on the package of the milk chocolate baking block.

The second recipe I chose was for peanut butter fudge.  Only 3 ingredients to this recipe!  It probably can’t be considered real “fudge” because of these ingredients, but it does have a smooth, creamy texture that definitely resembles fudge.  I’m actually very excited about this recipe and can’t wait to share it with you!

You’ll need two products from Cadbury Australia’s baking chocolate range:

And one other ingredient that is probably in your pantry right now – peanut butter (unless you’re allergic, and if so, why not try another type of nut butter?).  Okay, listen to this.  All you need to do to make this fudge, is melt the melts separately in the microwave (or double-boiler, if you prefer), mix peanut butter into both the dark and white melts, pour them into the pan, swirl with a knife and let it set in the refrigerator.  A very short time later, you’ll have something that looks like this:

Well, if you use the right size pan, you will probably have a thicker fudge, but how pretty is that?  I don’t have the size of pan used in the recipe, so I used the closest I had, which was longer and made the fudge very skinny!

The swirling is easy.  I just spooned alternate chocolates into the pan, so I ended up with a sort-of checkerboard pattern.  For the next layer, I just reversed the checkerboard pattern.  When all the chocolate was used up, I banged the pan on the countertop to level it, then took a butter knife and gently swirled the chocolates together.  You only need to swirl once – don’t keep swirling, or you’ll just end up mixing the chocolates together and it won’t look so pretty.

This fudge is delicious, and tastes even better on the next day.  And here’s the best part – if you love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, then hold onto your hats, because the taste of this fudge is very similar to Reese’s.  It is so delicious!

It keeps very well in the refrigerator.  I made this fudge 4 days ago and I still have some left, which tastes as good as the day I made it.  I’d say it’ll keep for at least a week in the refrigerator.

You can find the recipe for Easy Peanut Butter Fudge at Cadbury Kitchen.

Overall, the new baking chocolate range is fabulous and I can’t wait to use the rest of the chocolate.  I love how smooth the chocolate is when it’s melted and it’s got that lovely glossy look to it.  Regarding the chocolate melts, I have never liked the taste of any particular brand’s melts on their own, but I will honestly say that Cadbury’s melts taste better than any previous melts I have tasted.  What is great about the baking chocolate is that it’s all real, delicious chocolate – even the white chocolate contains at least 23% cocoa butter.  If the white chocolate you use does not contain cocoa butter, then it is not real white chocolate (this is one of my biggest pet peeves!).

So there you have it, a glowing, positive review on Cadbury Australia’s new baking chocolate range!  I would, without a doubt, recommend the products to you to try yourself.  And if you can’t decide on what to make with it, check out Cadbury Kitchen and I’m sure you’ll find something delicious there (this chocolate mud cake with baked pears is what I’m making next!)!

Well, all that said though, I can’t refuse a picnic.  Maybe it’s because picnics remind me of the carefree days of being a child.  At my parents’ house, we had a classic-style picnic table in our big backyard and a grill.  Many things happened at that table, not just eating.  They’re all good memories that almost make me want to tear up when I remember them.  I also loved going out into our woods just past twilight, when it was a little scary in the darkened shadows of the trees, where my dad would light a fire inside a circle of stones and we would roast hot dogs and marshmallows.

Eating outside evokes a lot of childhood memories for me, but that aside, eating outside is just plain fun.  Except for the bugs and dirt, ew.

Yesterday was one of the nicest days we’ve had in weeks, literally.  We’ve had to endure wind, rain and cold and it is supposed to be spring, Australia, come on!  Even though I love the rain, enough is enough! I decided that it was a good day to enjoy a break in the weather and have a picnic in the backyard for lunch with the kids.

I took them to the grocery store first thing in the morning to get some ingredients, having decided upon chicken wraps, a basic salad, strawberries, strawberry cupcakes and fresh homemade lemonade for our picnic.  Luckily, I had received a bounty of products from Kitchenware Direct – an Australian online kitchen supplies shop – that would help me get my picnic together quickly and easily, which I will review for you in this post.

The most fun for me was the Zyliss salad spinner.  This is the first ever salad spinner I have owned in my entire life.  After the first time I used it, I wondered why it had taken so long for me to get one.  It’s simple to use – just place your salad leaves in the colander-style basket, rinse the leaves and place the basket back in the bowl.  The fun part is making it spin.  My kids couldn’t get enough of this!  This particular spinner has a locking lever and a stop button, which will fluff the leaves back up when you’re done spinning.

This was just a basic salad – I bought the mixed salad leaves in a bag and added chopped tomatoes and cucumbers.  I used a homemade balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing.

I also needed a bowl for our salad and this salad bowl was perfect.  It’s a very attractive clear glass bowl to show off all the beautiful colors in a salad – a definite must!  See it in my pictures of the actual picnic below.

Next, I needed to make the chicken wraps.  This is a very healthy wrap that is super easy to prepare.  Lebanese bread is wrapped around a delicious filling of chicken tenderloins, lettuce leaves, tomatoes, tabouli, hummous and tzatziki.  The entire wrap was quite gigantic, so I had to slice the wrap in half to make it easier to hold and eat.  What better way to do this than with a Scanpan sandwich knife (which I didn’t even know existed until I found it at Kitchenware Direct!).

This sandwich knife will cut through your sandwich (or wrap) easily without crushing it.  It’s a very heavy knife that feels great in my hand - I was so impressed that I immediately fell in love with it!

On to dessert – strawberry cupcakes!  Okay, so these aren’t homemade, I’ll admit.  They’re a Betty Crocker box mix, but my kids certainly don’t mind.  How hard is it to travel with cupcakes, by the way, when you don’t have a cupcake carrier?  I had a Cupcake Courier while in the US that I had won from Iron Cupcake: Earth, which was great, except that I found it very difficult to store because it was so large.

Kitchenware Direct has a collapsible cupcake carrier that makes it easier to store, yet it can still hold 2 dozen cupcakes or a cake.  This what I used to carry our cupcakes to the picnic blanket.

Here you can see the cupcake carrier on the left and the glass salad bowl on the right.  In the center in the back are our chicken wraps and right in front is our fresh homemade lemonade.

Everything was very delicious and we all had a great time eating our lunch outside!

My daughter’s favorite was the lemonade, but both of my sons preferred the cupcakes.  The chicken wraps and salad were my favorites!

Thank you, Kitchenware Direct, for helping to make our picnic so fun, easy and enjoyable!

Recipe sources:
Lemonade – Country Living
Chicken wraps – Kidspot

Recently, Kristy at KSayerphotography had a giveaway on her blog.  The prize was 14 blocks of Alter Eco Pacific chocolate.  First of all, I saw “14 blocks of chocolate”!  Awesome prize!  Then I realized I had never heard of Alter Eco Pacific chocolate before.  I went to their website to have a look.

Alter Eco Pacific is based in Australia.  Their products are Fair Trade, organic, and contain nothing artificial.  They use sustainable farming methods and natural fertilizers.  Just reading this on their website made me feel really great about consuming their chocolate.

I entered Kristy’s giveaway and hoped for the best!

A little while later, I received word that I had won the giveaway!  Awesome!  About a week later, I was opening the parcel containing over 1 kilogram of chocolate.  Here is what I had won:

Delicious!

Some of this chocolate I could bake with, and some I was going to just simply eat.  In this post, I’ll give a brief review of each of the blocks, and also give you a Donna Hay recipe that I made with the chocolate.

The first block I tried was the Crystallized Orange Peel chocolate.  I do love chocolate and orange!  The chocolate was exceptionally smooth and the orange peel, although while slightly annoyingly chewy, lent a hint of orange.  The orange was not strong or overpowering, just gentle and soft.  I didn’t bake with this chocolate; I just ate it straight from the block!

Next, I tried the Quinoa, which is another block I did not bake with, but just simply ate.  This chocolate was much darker in flavor than the orange.  I think the quinoa is a nice textural addition to the chocolate, giving it a bit of a crunch.  I had never eaten quinoa before tasting this.  I feel I still don’t have a good idea of what quinoa tastes like, as I mainly just tasted the dark chocolate in this block.

I had to try to bake something with this chocolate, so I used a bit of the Dark Velvet (which contains organic milk) in some chocolate chunk cookies.  They were very delicious, but I actually loved eating this chocolate straight from the block more than the cookies.  It was very, very velvety and so smooth.  It wasn’t as hard as the other blocks.  I loved it!

Another one I decided to use in a batch of chocolate chunk cookies was the Cocao Nib.  This one I was really looking forward to try, as I had never eaten cocao nibs.  I loved the crunch and I loved the taste of this block.  In the cookies, the crunch was more subtle after baking.  Again though, I wish I wouldn’t have baked with this block as I wanted to eat more of it on its own!

The Almond one was delicious as well, much better than any almond chocolate bar you’d by in the candy aisle at the grocery store!

I used both whole blocks of the Blackout chocolate, containing 85% cocoa, to make Donna Hay’s dark chocolate and caramel pudding.  This recipe is on the cover of her most recent winter magazine.  The pudding is basically made up of a layer of dulce de leche on the bottom, and gooey chocolate cake on top – in other words, heaven!

This recipe was so heavenly I made it twice in two weeks!  For the first go, I used Alter Eco’s Pacific Blackout.  The block melted down so smoothly and smelled great as they melted.  The end result was super delicious and super chocolaty.  The recipe for this is at the end of this post.

I’m saving the best chocolate for last… the Mint Chocolate.  I have tasted a lot of mint chocolate, and although I like the combination, I normally wouldn’t name it as one of my favorites.  But this block of mint chocolate was the best ever mint chocolate I have tasted in my entire life.  It contains tiny pieces of peppermint which are crunchy and release bursts of mint that are just to die for.  This was without a doubt my most favorite of Alter Eco Pacific’s chocolate.

My second favorite was the Dark Velvet.  My least favorite was the orange.

I’ve got to find where these blocks are sold and buy some more to add to my stash.  My last mint chocolate is half gone, and I feel I absolutely need to have more!

 

       Print This!    

Dark Chocolate And Caramel Pudding
Adapted from Donna Hay magazine, issue 57
Makes 4* (see my note below)

Ingredients
1 x 380g can store-bought caramel filling*
1/3 cup (80ml) double (thick) cream
200g dark chocolate, chopped
60g unsalted butter
3 eggs
½ cup (90g) brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup (60g) almond meal
Cocoa, for dusting

Method
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Place the caramel in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Add the cream and mix well to combine. Place 1/3 cup (80ml) of the caramel mixture in the base of a 4 x 1 ½ cup-capacity (375ml) ovenproof dishes.

Place the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Place the eggs, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 8-10 minutes or until doubled in size. Fold the chocolate mixture and almond meal through the egg mixture and divide between the dishes.

Place on a baking tray and bake for 18-20 minutes or until risen and the centres are soft. Stand for 5 minutes. Dust with cocoa to serve.

*Find caramel filling in the baking aisle of the supermarket. If this isn’t available, use store-bought or homemade dulce de leche. Here in Australia, you can use Nestle Top ‘N Fill caramel, which is essentially dulce de leche.

*I divided the caramel and cake mixture between 6 1-cup ramekins, instead of only 4 1 1/2 cup ramekins.  After seeing the quantities of the mixtures, I felt that it could easily fit in 6 smaller ones.  In the end, I am glad I did this because the pudding is so rich and had it just been 4 ramekins, I don’t think we could have eaten the entire contents of the ramekin in one go!

 

Last week, Ghermez Cupcakes had a Facebook contest for followers to guess their new cupcake flavor.  The first three followers to name the correct flavor would win one dozen free cupcakes each – in the regular size, not the minis.  This contest was perfect for me.  About three days later, after hundreds of cupcake flavors had been named, it was announced that I was one of the three followers to have named the correct flavor!  YAY!

What was the new flavor?  Mango!  I hadn’t yet heard of a mango cupcake, but this one sounded delicious.  Mango cake, mango puree filling and mango frosting.  Mango lovers, rejoice!

I took my daughter and one of my sons (the other son was at preschool) to the City to collect our free cupcakes.  I also gave my two children a small sightseeing tour of Sydney by walking up Martin Place; watching someone read the news at the Channel 7 TV studios; drooling outside the Lindt Cafe (we didn’t go inside because we were already getting a dozen cupcakes, so didn’t need more sweets!); gazing at the fountain in Hyde Park, which was displaying a huge rainbow in the sprays of water; walking down the tree-lined footpath in Hyde Park; marveling at the beauty of St Mary’s Cathedral, where we were going to go inside, but couldn’t as there was a funeral at that particular time.  On the way back to the train station, we collected our free cupcakes.

Okay, so we ate two of them on the way home!  Here are the flavors, from top left: Chocolate Mud Cake with Dark Chocolate Buttercream and Chocolate Sprinkles, Marshmallow Filled Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Icing, Fresh Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Icing, Mango Cake with Mango Puree Filling and Mango Buttercream, Pistachio & Rose Water Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream, Dark Chocolate Cake with Rose Flavoured Chocolate Filling and Chocolate Ganache, Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing, Red Velvet Chocolate Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Icing (sorry, this one isn’t pictured because we already ate it before we got home!), Caramel Cake with a Caramel (Dulce de Leche) Layer on top (sorry, this one isn’t pictured either because we ate this one first before we got home!), Vanilla Cake with Milk Chocolate Buttercream Icing, Espresso Cake with Coffee Flavoured Buttercream Icing, White Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Icing.

Oh, where to start?  First of all, I’ll say that the ladies serving us in the cupcake shop were so friendly and cheerful!  They even gave us a sample of their new brownie and blondie.  Their brownie is made from Belgian dark chocolate with cherries and walnuts – this was out-of-this-world delicious!  The blondie was a pistachio and sour cherry one, and I wasn’t really keen on this one.  It was okay, I thought, but I’d much rather devour a pan of the brownies!  I might try to replicate them myself soon!

On to the cupcakes, there wasn’t any doubt that my daughter and I both wanted the dulce de leche cupcake first.  I wanted it all to myself, but had to share with her, of course!  Oh wow, there is pure dulce de leche on top.  This cupcake was simply to die for and is up there on my most-favorite-ever cupcakes.

The next one we tried was the red velvet and I was really pleased because previously I had tried this in a mini version (read my review on their mini cupcakes – link at the top of this post) and was not happy at all.  It ended up being my least favorite mini cupcake.  But the regular-sized version was delicious.  The cake was crumbly and soft and beautifully red.

The new mango cupcake was a very different experience – as I said, I’ve never heard of a mango cupcake before!  The mango flavor is very soft and delicate, it’s really lovely.  The mango puree filling was delicious.

I was saving the rose chocolate one for one of the last ones because I’d thought I’d really enjoy that one.  I loved it!  The whole cupcake is chocolate, filled with a rose-flavored chocolate ganache.  You don’t smell rose, or taste rose, until you bite right into the center of that ganache.  It’s not a sickly rose flavor either, it’s just right and delicate.

Which reminds me to say that both on my previous visit and this visit, I got a chocolate mud cupcake.  Both times, I have smelled/tasted the faint hint of rose in this cupcake.  There isn’t supposed to be rose in it.  I figured the first time that it must be because it was sitting next to the pistachio & rose cupcake, but the other cupcakes sitting next to the pistachio & rose didn’t taste or smell like rose.  But this is the second time that has happened.  It doesn’t matter, it just seems a little strange.

One of the cupcakes I was really looking forward to was the espresso one.  I expected a strong hit of coffee, but I was slightly disappointed that the strong hit just wasn’t there.  It didn’t taste much like coffee, actually.  There was a very subtle coffee hint though, and the espresso bean on top was delicious, it just didn’t deliver what I wanted in an espresso cupcake.

All the cupcakes were delicious in their own way.  With the minis, I thought they were on the dry side, as is common with mini cupcakes due to their size, so I wasn’t exactly blown away on my first visit.  I’ve done a complete 360 with Ghermez’s regular-sized cupcakes though.  The cakes were moist and had the perfect crumb, in my opinion.  They were not light and airy, but more firm without being dense.  The vanilla cake was delicious – I’d love to have the recipe for it!

Thank you for the free cupcakes, Ghermez Cupcakes!

Again, as with my last review, I totally recommend Ghermez Cupcakes if you need a cupcake fix.  They even serve coffees and have sweet little knee-height tables to have a cupcake and coffee over.  The staff are friendly and will be delighted, I’m sure, to look after you.

If you’ve been to Ghermez Cupcakes, please share your experience in the comments; I’d love to hear what you thought!

I took my daughter back there over the weekend – a trip into the city just for cupcakes!  The straight lines of the design inside Ghermez Cupcakes, paired with a delicious shade of red, give this shop a very modern and sexy appearance.  It’s quite beautiful, actually!

The guy behind the counter was really friendly and welcoming – it seems that friendly staff is hard to come by these days, so I was really appreciative of this.

The display case offered a tempting display of flavors, including their brand new blueberry cupcake, which is made with fresh blueberries both in the cake and the white chocolate frosting.  Most of the cupcakes have a little decoration on top in the shape of the lowercase letter “G”.

On offer were mini cupcakes ($2.20) and regular cupcakes ($3.80).  After a good look at all the beautiful cupcakes on display, my daughter and I chose one dozen mini cupcakes – one of each flavor they had!

Aren’t they gorgeous!  Starting from the top left, we have a Carrot and Walnut Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing, Blueberry Cake with Blueberry and White Chocolate Buttercream Icing, Pistachio and Rose Water Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream, Sticky Date with Caramel Icing, Chocolate Mud Cake with Dark Chocolate Buttercream and Chocolate Sprinkles, Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing, Fresh Banana Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Icing, Lemon Cake with Lemon Frosting, Red Velvet Chocolate Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Icing, Fresh Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Icing, Vanilla Cake with Milk Chocolate Buttercream Icing, and Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Icing and Marshmallow Topping.

We couldn’t resist eating a few on the train home!

My daughter basically loved each mini cupcake she ate, but I did have my favorites of the dozen.  First off all, I will reluctantly admit that the cakes were slightly drier than I expected/liked.  However, they still tasted fabulous!  My favorites were the blueberry, sticky date, chocolate mud, carrot cake, lemon, and strawberry ones.  My least favorite was the red velvet one…. I think because the frosting was too cream cheesy for my tastes, and I’m not a huge fan of cream cheese.

We had five cupcakes leftover on the next day, so I took the opportunity to get some nice photographs of them with my new cupcake stands by Hello Hanna that I bought from Mon Tresor.

The wooden utensils, ribbon and doily is also from Mon Tresor.  I think that the cupcakes were slightly more moist and flavorful on the next day, to be honest.  It sounds strange, but they really were!  The frosting was a bit more dry, but I didn’t mind much.  The cupcakes above were the ones we had remaining on the next day.  The lemon one at the very top of the photo was accidentally dropped back into the box, which is why the frosting’s a bit messed up!

I would definitely recommend stopping by Ghermez Cupcakes if you find yourself near one of their three shops around Sydney.  They have different flavors each day of the week (you can see their weekly flavor chart on their website), including a dulce de leche one, which I just have to have!

The shop is indeed beautiful.  I wasn’t brave enough to ask if I could take a photo inside the shop, so all you get is this sideways shot of the outside!  The inside of the shop is loaded with sweet treats of all kinds, including macarons, marshmallows, fudge, toffee, truffles, or, easier yet, let’s just say that if it’s sweet, it’s in this shop!

I was a little overwhelmed.  I couldn’t choose what to get.  I had a brief look behind the counter, where a handful of people were handmaking the treats – that’s right, everything in this shop is handmade, right in the shop itself.  It’d be neat to spend a day behind the counter to see what it’s like to handmake all these treats.

There were tiny samples of a lot of the treats and my son and I took advantage of most of them.  The fudge was amazing!  Now that I think about it, I’m sorry I didn’t purchase any of the fudge!  But I could see that I could easily lose track of my spending in this shop, so I had to pass on a lot of things.

They also had a bag that they themselves had filled with their favorite and best treats.  Inside the bag was a generous block of hazelnut and cranberry nougat (in the style of Montelimar), a big block of rocky road that was chock full of their own handmade marshmallows and pate de fruit, a beautiful large shard of English toffee, and 4 soft, squishy, cloud-like marshmallows.  This bag of treats, $18.50, was what I chose first.

I never liked nougat, and even though I hoped that I would like the nougat from Sweetness, I didn’t!  This has nothing to do with the quality of this particular block of nougat, I just simply don’t like nougat, and now I know that I don’t, once and for all!

The rocky road and the toffee were my absolute favorites of everything that I purchased.  The rocky road was full of Sweetness’ own handmade signature marshmallows – in the block that I got, I believe I had a mix of raspberry and mango flavors.  Definitely the best rocky road I have ever eaten.  The toffee was not rock hard, as I expected, but had a lovely crunch instead.  And again, it was the best English toffee I have ever eaten.

Separately, the nougat is $8 for 150g; the rocky road is $4 for 100g; the toffee is $5 for 100g; the marshmallows are $2.50 for 2 squares, or $8 for 9 squares.

Sweetness’ marshmallows.  Oh, where do I begin.  If you think you’ve already eaten the best, most fluffiest, most squishiest marshmallows, you would be wrong.  You haven’t eaten anything like a marshmallow from Sweetness.  I could not believe how soft and squishy these were, like eating a cloud.  They also use real vanilla beans in their vanilla marshmallows, and they looked beautiful with the speckle of those beans throughout the marshmallow.  They even tasted like what they were supposed to taste like, and the passionfruit one was the strongest smelling one in the package that I got!

What I also loved about Sweetness was that they had a lot of their treats under glass domes.  They looked so pretty.  Under one of these domes were a variety of macarons.  I couldn’t tell what flavors they were just by looking, but I chose a chocolate one and a banana one.

Okay, so I have to be honest, after all, I’m writing a review, right?  I didn’t like the macarons.  They were stunningly gorgeous, sitting their under that glass dome in the shop, it took my breath away, it really did.  But I just wasn’t pleased with the taste.  The best macarons I have tasted so far were my very own chocolate and peanut butter ones, just FYI.  The chocolate didn’t really taste chocolatey, and there wasn’t enough filling, in my opinion, but I liked how there was a sprinkling of cocao nibs on top (I didn’t get a photo of these, unfortunately).  The banana one had a subtle banana taste, and was filled with chocolate, but just not enough.  What surprised me the most about these macarons?  Look at the photo below:

My first bite showed me a huge pocket of air inside the top macaron shell!  I didn’t think macarons were supposed to have a pocket of air inside, although I’m not a macaron expert, but it didn’t make me feel so bad when I discovered some pockets of air inside my own macarons that I have baked.  But look at all that gooey inside the Sweetness macaron!  The shell on these babies were perfect.  The shells on my macarons that I have baked never came anywhere close to the shells on these from Sweetness.  These were my first official macarons from an official patisserie, and even though I wasn’t happy with the way they tasted, I enjoyed every second of eating them.  If that makes any sense!

The macarons were $3 each, or $33.00 for one dozen.

My last choice from Sweetness was the dark chocolate shortbread (seen in the third photo up from here).  You’d think I would have chosen some truffles, or fudge, instead of a simple shortbread, but I’ve never tried chocolate shortbread before.  And they did look very nice.  These were under a glass dome as well.  They have a coating of dark chocolate on the bottom, as well as a zig-zag of dark chocolate across the top.  This shortbread cookie just simply melted in my mouth, what an amazing experience.  They were sooo scrumptious.  $2.00 each or $20.00 for one dozen.

After we left Sweetness, we went to Pablo and Rusty’s Espresso Bar, who gave me a great cappuccino.  I loved this little place and will definitely return if I find myself near one of their espresso bars again.

My visit to Sweetness was definitely worth it; it even made up for my nearly panicking on Epping station’s skyscraping elevator!  I would highly recommend Sweetness The Patisserie if you’re looking for treats for a party, or even just to treat yourself.  A lot of their products are gluten-free, as well.  So go ahead – indulge!

I placed my order in October for a Chocolate Chip Off The Ol’ Block, and a Banana Butterscotch Bad Boy.  I was so excited to try them, but unfortunately there was a problem with the shipment and I did not receive it in the specified time frame of 2-3 days.  I emailed customer service, and also phoned the post office.  Apparently the shipment had not been scanned from the sender’s post office, so tracking was telling me that it wasn’t even in transit yet.

Bangerang Bake Shop was so kind and reshipped my order about a week later, but surprise, my first order arrived before the second did!  I was a little wary about their freshness, as it had been a week since these cupcakes were shipped.  I put them in the refrigerator and hoped for the best.  A couple of days later, my second order arrived in the specified time frame.  Now I had four Bangerang cupcakes-in-a-jar!

I knew I’d like the chocolate chip one the best, so I saved it for last and tried the banana butterscotch cupcake first.  Bangerang even included two plastic forks!

The first thing I can tell you about this cupcake is that there is no mistaking that this is banana!  It’s obviously made with tons of real bananas, and the butterscotch is so rich and creamy.  Delicious!  The cake itself was definitely delicious, but it wasn’t as soft and moist as I had expected.  It was more of a muffin texture, but a very yummy muffin!

Next up, the chocolate chip one.  This was one of the Cupcakes For A Cause, where the proceeds would go to the CancerCare For Kids program, so it included a sugar smiley face.  This program has ended, so the smiley faces are no longer included in this cupcake.

As I expected, this was definitely one of the best cupcakes I’ve ever eaten.  It’s the only chocolate chip cupcake I’ve had that actually tasted like a chocolate chip cookie.  The cake was softer and moister than the banana one.  The vanilla bean buttercream is to-die-for.  The addition of the mini chocolate chips brings everything together and you get one of the most amazing tastes that have ever entered your mouth!  This is an amazing cupcake, I was so glad I had two of these babies!

I kept my cupcakes in the refrigerator and reheated them in the microwave before I ate them.  I really recommend doing this yourself as well, as it makes the cupcake taste like it’s almost straight from the oven.

If you are looking for a big yummy cupcake for yourself or someone else as a treat, Bangerang Bake Shop‘s cupcake-in-a-jar would definitely be the way to go!  :)

Note that I have not been paid from or asked by Bangerang Bake Shop to write up this review, I just wanted to share my experience with others!

They were packaged nicely from Cherry Moon Farms.  In each box were 16 strawberries, so 32 strawberries in all, and in each box was one jar of fudge dipping sauce.

And when I said they were huge, I did mean that they were huge!

The fudge dipping sauce is an award-winning gourmet chocolate sauce from Fudge Fatale.  It is a very nice sauce that is not too sweet and goes perfect with the strawberries.  The sauce is spreadable at room temperature and needs a quick zap in the microwave to achieve a dipping consistency.  It would also be nice over ice cream, I imagine!

There are recipes on the Fudge Fatale webiste that are worth checking out as well.  I have two jars of this sauce and will definitely have some leftover, so I hope to try out a couple of those recipes.

This was a very sweet and totally unexpected Mother’s Day gift!  What sweet treats have you received or given for Mother’s Day this year?