Hanlip Dessert is an Asian inspired dessert parlour with a store in Pyrmont, with Ice Kirin Bar in Burwood being a second retail point for their dacquoise — a French dessert made with almond meringue shells sandwiching buttercream or cream cheese — so we picked up a few while satisfying our gelato cravings. They opened a store in Westfield Parramatta in mid-October 2021.
This is the Earl Grey Dacquoise ($6.00), the store’s top seller featuring an Earl Grey buttercream. This is our favourite of the three, with a prominent Earl Grey flavour with a creamy richness that contrasted well with the crisp, light shell with its slightly chewy innards.
This is the Black Sesame Dacquoise ($6.00). Always a fan of black sesame, we were disappointed to discover that cream cheese was used as the base for the black sesame. The sharp acidity of the cream cheese dominated and pushed the black sesame to a hint in the background. The overly generous dusting of kinako on the exterior gave every bite a very dry and unpleasant mouthfeel. The tiny balls of mochi could not redeem it.
This is the Dried Ground Grain & Soybean Powder Dacquoise ($6.00). The generous dusting of kinako on the exterior of this one gave it a similarly dry and unpleasant mouthfeel as the previous, but the buttercream base redeemed it somewhat along with the mochi. That said, the overall flavour was very bland and uninspiring.
Black sesame mochi roll cake ($13.90). It’s described as being ‘black sesame fresh cream rolled with black sesame flavoured mochi sheet’.
Each roll contained 6 slices, each around 2.5 cm thick, and 8 cm in diameter.
Served frozen (as recommended), the roll took on the texture of chewy ice cream, much like ice cream mochi. It had a nutty sesame aroma from both the sponge and the fresh cream centre, while the former retained a bouncy softness when frozen and the latter takes on the mouthfeel of ice cream. That said, the flavour of the black sesame was not sufficiently intense to make for a good black sesame ice cream to be comparable to that from Ice Kirin Bar or Max Joy Co. Overall, the flavour could’ve been better, though the texture was very enjoyable.
Hanlip Dessert is located at Shop/142 Pyrmont St, Pyrmont NSW 2009 and near Kathmandu, Level 2, Westfield Parramatta, 159-175 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150.