I blog to detail things that are of great interest to me but not worth the energy of committing to hard memory. After all, a million things happen every day and I’d tire myself out if I tried to commit my thoughts on desserts, tea, travel and other beautiful things to hard memory. It’s an author-centred purpose, but it’s the only one I can commit myself to after having tried various approaches over the past decade.
Fulfillment of my purpose, however, requires that I write about things while they’re still fresh in my mind. So, you’ll understand when I say I cannot remember enough of the nuances in the desserts that N and I had at Blackflower Patisserie on Lunar New Year to write about it properly. I’ll have to write about it earlier next time, but I’ll do what I can this time –
This was my cake, the Kiss Kiss – a chocolate mousse on sable breton.
The chocolate mousse, which was finished off with a mirror chocolate glaze and two shiny peanuts, encased a generous dollop of peanut butter mousse. If I remember nothing else about this cake correctly, I know that I enjoyed this cake immensely. It was rich and not too sweet, which is just the way I like my chocolate cakes. The decorations added visual interest, but I didn’t like eating them – the peanuts were raw and the chocolate not necessary.
This is N’s cake, the Sex Bomb – durian mousse on sable breton.
The durian mousse, which was finished off with a white chocolate mirror glaze and slice of coconut white chocolate, encased a slab of pandan jelly. You either like durian or you don’t, and I definitely do not. People say that durian tastes okay if you can get past the smell. They lie! It tastes exactly as it smells, so you need to be able to stomach the smell to eat it! That said, N loves durian, so this distinctly Asian dessert was right up her alley.
This is ‘Lust’ (rose mousse with lychee purée jelly and hazelnut feuillitine). The rose mousse was quite strong and quite overwhelmed any hint of lychee. I’m rather sensitive to floral flavours/scents though.
And this is ‘Pac-man’ (mango mousse, passionfruit jelly and sable breton sponge). You never really go wrong with passionfruit or mango cakes. I’d have preferred the jelly/mousse to be less stiff though.
I had Mario’s Garden. Inside, it’s your standard tiramisu with coffee jelly. I was a bit irked that it came in a black container, though, because isn’t it part of the beauty of cakes to be able to see it, and not just the top? Anyway, outside you have the cutest Mario-inspired arrangement of a meringue mushroom, perched atop chocolate and matcha ‘soil’. By itself, the ‘soil’ is a bit much, but once you’ve managed to dig through and get a good dollop of tiramisu with it, it’s quite an interesting twist on the tiramisu in terms of texture (in the ‘soil’), but also in terms of taste (in the matcha).
C had Envy, which is a matcha-based cake with layers of black sesame and white chocolate ganache. C was quite taken with the green tea flavours in the cake, though I found it to be a tad too bitter and too sweet. Neither of us could taste the black seasame, even though we could see it, alas. Nonetheless, the presence of intense flavours means that Blackflower Patisserie is back on my list of ‘stores with pretty cakes’!
The cakes were an ‘east meets west’ theme. Western desserts have stronger flavours generally; everything is more tangy, richer, etc. Eastern takes on western desserts (or eastern desserts in general) seem to be rather mellow to the point that I find them boring and dry. So on the east-meets-west thing? I still prefer Western desserts, but these were a perfect mid-point between the two.
Blackflower Patisserie is located at 37 Ultimo Road, Haymarket NSW 2000.