'Laurent Patisserie, Melbourne' ... Review

Laurent Patisserie Boutique Collins Street Melbourne

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Daniel Teenage Stepson of The Lone Baker;

So okay, I’ve been sick, fatigued, busy, lazy, homework-y... plus I am the king of procrastination... because of this combination this review entry is beyond late, and for this I apologise. To make up for it, I will try to get another review up ASAP, and it will be awesome. ;)

Eliza and I recently went to Laurent, one beautiful (in our winter-loving eyes) morning, the air was cool and the rain was falling just enough to not saturate us and turn us into cold complain-y teenagers. We found Laurent in Little Collins St, on the corner of Little Collins, and some nice looking Alleyway ‘thing’ with a street sign titled ‘The Causeway’. I was very attracted by how French Laurent’s exterior looked, and how warm the yellow glow inside appeared.

warm yellow glow

We entered the the Patisserie while also entering our usual zone of indecisiveness, though this time it was warranted because of its insanely vast selection of everything ever. Breads and cakes, pastry, other sweets... I could list everything... but I won’t. The point is, it was amazing, EVERYTHING looked and smelled delicious, high quality, and presumably baked on premises. Because of a little food excitement, we ordered quite a lot, a plate of three different macaroons, a beautiful almond croissant, and the ultimate chocolate-y bastard, by the name of ‘Christine’.

the 'Christine'

I won’t go into detail about the food, Eliza’s review is coming up and it covers everything awesomely, but I’d just like to mention that this food was amazing. I was sick with a horrible virus during this day, making my throat and neck insanely sore, so it was painful to actually swallow the food... but it still ended up being the most enjoyable beautiful food ever!

OH! And I forgot to mention that the woman who served us had the cutest French accent EVER! 

But now to Elly...

Eliza teenage friend of the the teenage stepson of The Lone Baker;

BAM!

There are some foods that are just plain sinful to eat, whether it’s because they’re incredibly decadent or they’re too gosh darn pretty to devour… or both. In the case of our brunch at Laurent’s Little Collins St store, it was most definitely both. Thankfully,Laurent isn’t a patisserie that I’m unfamiliar with; there’s one just by my work, as a matter of fact- God bless Chadstone’s ubiquitously pretentious stores. But standing under our umbrella in the rain, staring up at the elegant bakery with its alley way seating arrangements, I couldn’t help but feel like we’d stepped directly into a scene from Roman Holiday (Except Laurent is French, not Italian… And Dan’s about a foot too short to pass for Gregory Peck). Fortunately, we managed to order and eat without too much embarrassment this time… if you don’t count giggling for five minutes at the selections of Croque-Monsieur, and Dan dropping his cutlery all over the floor…

part of the selection

Personally I’ve always had an immense love for Almond Croissants, so when I saw a whole line of them in their lovely little display, I insisted on having one. While the croissant itself didn’t really look appealing at all – in fact, it looked more like a baking disaster than a piece of culinary excellence – it was certainly the best almond croissant I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot. Dan had never had one before so I was hoping that they’d choose the one that looked the nicest out of those on display for his first try, unfortunately all of them looked more like a (excuse the use of the vernacular) dog’s breakfast rather than a French breakfast. The edges were slightly burnt and the only solution they seemed to be able to come up with to fix it was to bury it in almonds and icing sugar. Luckily I’m not superficial, and what it lacked in appearance it made up for in tastiness. I definitely recommend trying one, especially how I had it- on a cold morning, watching the rain outside and drinking tea (I sound like an old woman).

almond crossiant

Next up were the macaroons, and at a steep $2.20 each, they’re definitely not an everyday snack- although I’d happily hand over an hours pay for a box of these babies. We decided on three flavours: pistachio, lemon and strawberry, and Dan once again proved himself to be inept at fractions when he was unable to divide them in half. While I found the lemon to be slightly too overpowering and the strawberry slightly too flavourless, the pistachio was by far my favourite. I certainly didn’t find any of the three bad though, quite the contrary. In comparison to the macaroons Dan and I tried at the Lindt Café, those at Laurentwere more of the classic French style in that they were much chewier on the inside than those at the Lindt Café, which took more of a biscuit form. And the three looked so cute on the plate together that I just didn’t want to eat them… that of course didn’t happen, they were destined to be in my belly.

We saved the prettiest ‘til last, though. Something that was called a Christine, and it’s safe to say is the epitome of all desserts.To put it bluntly it was a chocolate mousse cake with crème brulee and macadamia nuts buried at the bottom of it, decorated chocolate panelling, and topped with a small chocolate with ‘LAURENT’ printed on it and what, if the world were made of chocolate, would be your television antenna.

While this epitome cake lacked the fun of cracking the top of a crème brulee with a spoon, the richness of the mousse and the gratuitous amounts of chocolate made the cake worth it’s money- I wasn’t even able to get through half of it before I was going to burst (keeping in mind that I had just eaten three quarters of an almond croissant and a few macaroons). The whole cake itself was so pretty and well presented that it broke my heart to see it cut in half and even more so to see it eaten by Dan and I. But that’s what it gets for being so tasty.

worth the money

Thanks again to Eliza, for the amazing review, she has done the best job. In the next review I will give her a better hand, I swear!

review & photos; Eliza Nicoll & Daniel Paxton-Zahra

Laurent Patisserie

• 306 Little Collins St
  Melbourne 3000 VIC
• Phone: (03) 9654 1011

Website; www.laurent.com.au

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'The Cupcake Bakery' Review

'The Cupcake Bakery' Cupcakes Review

                            Custard Tumble cupcake $4.50

Daniel teenage stepson of The Lone Baker;

Greetings! Welcome to the first, of hopefully many more reviews of Dan and Eliza’s to be featured on The Lone Baker.

To start us off, we decided to visit one of ‘The Cupcake Bakery’ stores, inside Melbourne Central.

Okay, no lies here… this was an extremely embarrassing experience… firstly, I was way too indecisive to actually place the order for the cupcakes, and had to ask Eliza to kindly ‘do the honours’. This was an entertaining decision, as I was privileged enough to hear Elly awkwardly ‘Fumble’ around with the Cupcake names ;)

As I handed the bakery employee the money however, thinking I had given her a $20 note, I stood, and stared at her waiting for my change for a substantial amount of time. I was asked strangely if I wanted anything else, to which I replied; ‘My change would be good’. An awkward pause, and some puzzled moments of following explanation revealed that I had indeed given her the EXACT change… The Cupcake Bakery’s staff are kind, willing to laugh, and joke. We found this out quickly!

I did mostly enjoy the cupcakes, for aesthetic reasons at least. The shop window revealed quite a vast selection of  ‘butter frosting swirled’, ‘glittery’ and ‘ridiculously chocolate-y (in a good way!) cakes, all of which leaving the customer a very strong desire to scoff down some cupcakes fast.

Elly and I selected 3 to taste test, ‘Red Velvet’, ‘Vanilla Strawberry’, and the ‘Custard Fumble’- I mean, ‘Custard Tumble’, which was a decadent cake from the stores more ‘deluxe’ range, with a debatably difficult to read label in front of the product.

red velvet, strawberry vanilla & custard tumble

-So, this spot right here, was initially where I was to have my cupcake review. Though, due to self-consciousness and fear of having the ‘inferior’ review of the two, I have stepped down and given Eliza this position. But in all seriousness, hers was naturally way better than mine, and covered everything awesomely. Thanks! :P

Eliza teenage friend of the the teenage stepson of The Lone Baker;

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but in the case of The Cupcake Bakery’s window display of all their different styles of cakes, it was hard not to. A good five minutes were spent by Dan and I just looking at and admiring the fancy little treats. The Vanilla Strawberry cupcake, topped with a swirl of icing and pretty pink sugar, and the Red Velvet with its colourful cake and cute-as-a-button, heart-topped icing looked so good I wanted to hang them from a necklace or smear them on a T-shirt, or something equally as unorthodox. While the pièce de résistance of our cupcake quest, the Custard Tumble (or the Custard ‘Fumble’ as I incorrectly read AND ordered) with its miniature mountain of profiteroles and caramel sauce looked so good you wanted to eat it… which I guess was the point.

vanilla strawberry $3.50

And the icing and decorations certainly didn't disappoint when it came to eating it; but while the icing didn’t, the cakes themselves did. The Vanilla Strawberry cupcake was a nice enough vanilla buttercake, but its ‘strawberry filling’ was really nothing more than a dollop of strawberry jam on top of the cake- more of which was on my half than on Dan’s. But to be fair, I’m sure The Cupcake Bakery hadn’t anticipated a pair of teenagers buying a bunch of cupcakes and dividing them in half for one another using an expired metcard, and purposely put more on my half.

metcard; public transport ticket & makeshift cupcake divider

Who would have known, though, that the quaint little Red Velvet cupcake was meant to be a ‘red coloured chocolate cake’?

I certainly didn’t. To be honest, I just thought it was ‘red’ flavour at the time, and it wasn’t until a few days later that Dan pointed out to me that it was meant to be chocolate. You couldn’t have picked it. I didn't. The Red Velvet was the only cupcake of the three we tasted that I really had a problem with. Again, my half was fine, but when I tasted some of the larger half that Dan snuck for himself, there was something horribly bitter about it. It was almost as if there was an ingredient that shouldn’t have been there, or the baking soda wasn’t mixed in properly. It didn’t make the whole thing overly appetizing. It did look really cute though.

inside a red velvet cupcake

Then there was the Custard ‘Fumble’. This little slab of decadence kind of proved to be a bitch to cut in two using our metcard-knife, and most of the toppings ended up smeared on my leg. Beneath the pile of choux pastry, there was a concealed pool of custard embedded into the top of the cake, which I guess is where the ‘custard’ part of the name comes in. Like all the others, though, the garnishes on the cupcake turned out to be better than the actual cake itself. The ‘vanilla almond buttercake’ was really no different to the vanilla buttercake of the Vanilla Strawberry cupcake, and nothing extremely special. The mini profiteroles and caramel sauce made the $4.50 paid for the cupcake all worthwhile though.

        review & photos; Eliza Nicoll & Daniel Paxton-Zahra

The Cupcake Bakery can be found at...

shop GD006, Menzies Lane, Melbourne Central, La Trobe Street, Melbourne