Chocolatesuze - Sydney Food Blogger

Super Easy Lemonade Scones

2 February 2012, 02:22

I loooooove scones. I never used to like scones way back in them childhood years, I always thought cake was far superior to scones. I remember staring sadly at the doughy lump in front of me and wondering why the adults loved them so much. AND THEN I WAS GIVEN CREAM AND ALL WAS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.

As you can prolly tell, I’m really not one for props but oh golly gosh how I love kids tea sets! I scored a set from the land of the allen key aka Ikea and it was too cute for words!


Anywhos ready for the world’s easiest scone recipe? It’s so freaking easy and super fast to whip up and the recipe is from here, takes about 20mins all up and makes about 10-15 scones.


Ingredients:
325g self-raising flour
170ml (2/3 cup) cold lemonade (do NOT use Solo! I tried it once and the scones become super dense)
170ml (2/3 cup) thickened cream


Preheat oven to 205C. Sift flour into a large bowl. Combine lemonade and cream in another bowl. Add the lemonade and cream mixture to the sifted flour and gently fold ingredients together using a spatula or dough scraper until JUST combined (don’t over mix the dough as this will make tough scones). The dough should be fairly soft and a bit sticky.


Place dough on a lightly floured bench, form into a round and press out to about 3cm thickness. Cut scones using a floured 4cm diameter cutter.


Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place scones close together on the tray, so they are just touching. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, or until pale golden and cooked through.


If you like your scones to have a soft crust just cover them with a tea towel for a few minutes.


Serve piping hot and with a bowlful of whipped cream and jam!

 

 

The Pie Tin, Newtown

30 January 2012, 00:32

OH HAI! Ohmygosh you guys do you love pie? I have been brought up on a diet of American tv shows and always, ALWAYS they get pie for dessert! It didn’t help that one of my favourite shows Pushing Daisies was all about pie (till they canned the show tch) but hey once you start thinking about pies you just cannot stop. After stalking posts here here here here here and here I knew I had to get myself to Pie Tin (1a Brown Street, Newtown) quick smart.


The Pie Tin’s hours are pretty awesome: M-W 10am-8pm, T-F 10am-10pm, Sat 9am-10pm, Sun 10am-6pm though the place is pretty packed during lunch hours and the humans seated at the communal table are eyeballed for their premium property.


Beers and ciders ftw


Selection of savoury pies


I’d managed to convince Noods to take a trek out to Newtown with the promise of deliciousness and he quickly devours his Tender Steak, Cheddar Cheese & Smokey Bacon pie along with sides of mushy peas and mash potato and a river of gravy ($10 for pie + 2 sides). I’d managed to snare the last Slow Roasted Shredded Pork with Apple and BBQ Sauce pie and was rejoicing in the tender nubbins of juicy pocine encased in golden flakey pastry with sides of mash potato and coleslaw.


Of course the real reason I wanted to go to the Pie Tin was for the dessert pies. OH BABY LOOKIE LOOK AT ALL THE PRETTIES! My heart, it was a-racing at all the choices! How to choose from such a drool worthy selection? It’s like picking a favourite child!


And the chosen child that day was the Snickers pie which comes with a side of cream ($6.50). It was everything I imagined. With a dark chocolate biscuit base, layers of chocolate and peanut butter mousse with a ribbon of caramel oh man it was GLORIOUS.


Visit #2 sees me being a tad greedy and ordering 3 dessert pies. It was sweet. Both in taste and in awesomeness. Picks of the day was the Malteser pie, Lemon Meringue pie and Gooey Caramel & Chocolate Ganache pie. As expected the Malteser pie was out of this world, surprisingly uber light and fluffy and unsurprisingly the caramel and choc pie was crazy rich like oh wow how many cavities am I gonna get rich. Not really a big fan of lemon meringue pie but I was suckered into ordering it when i saw the cloud of meringue piled sky high and it was sweet with a tart edge though I kinda wished the meringue was a bit more torched.


WHY SO PRETTY! Visit #3 has me seeing stars after spotting Noelines’ Triple Chocolate pie in the cabinet. If I thought the caramel & choc ganache tart was sweet then this pie kicked it out of the solar system in sweetness even with the scoop of vanilla ice cream ($1 extra) that I’d ordered but really what did I expect if there’s triple the chocolate lol but hey good times! I am foreseeing many more visits to try each dessert pie before possibly getting diabetes heh.

 

 

Assembly Bar, Sydney

25 January 2012, 02:22

Assembly Bar (488 Kent St, Sydney), aka the bar that is under the special place that is the KFC on George St has been on my radar for a while now. Always on the lookout for easygoing joints to chillax with awesome friends, Assembly Bar is the offspring of Pocket Bar and is conveniently located away from the bars that the suits frequent towards the Wynyard end.


Slip back into the armchairs and order a few rounds of drinks for the crew- there’s quite a selection of delicious cocktails available as well as wines and beers.


I can’t help but order the Assembly Fries after spying a bowl floating past me. The fries are golden and perfect, quite possibly the best fries I’ve eaten in a while but hot damn the $13 price tag has me weeping. The pot of truffle cheese sauce is gooey and the fries are dunked into the sauce with relish. That is, until the sauce gets cold and becomes congealed naww.


“The Sticky Ribs ($18) is a must order,” whispers the bartender. And it is DEEEEELICIOUS. The gorgeously tender meat is served off the bone with a sticky sweet sauce and yes there is broccolini there but uh it is mostly ignored in favour of the protein.


The Calamari Fritti ($10) looked a lil soulless and tasted like they needed to be bathed longer in the fiery depths of oil. Sads. Moving on.


Keen-wah Salad ($10) has me loling as once upon a time I used to pronounce quinoa totally not like how it’s meant to be… At first I had absolutely no intention of going anywhere near the salad but for research purposes I gave it a go. The first bite had me swooning as I had found cashews (my all time favourite nut) though with each subsequent bite I managed to not get cashews and Helen snuck the bowl back away from me.


The Pork Belly Slider ($12) is pretty big to be called a slider and without the expected hamburger buns it is pretty much just a sandwich albeit a tasty sandwich. It’s stuffed full of juicy pork innards as well as shards of crackle and the spicy sofrito packs a wallop of heat for this non spicy eater.


Provolone Peppers Croquettes ($10) are glorious, the deep fried balls just ooze with stretchy cheese and are studded with nubbins of red peppers. They don’t even really need a dunking in the spicy tomato sauce but maybe that’s because I prefer my balls of cheese to be unadulterated. Heh balls. Sorry couldn’t help it.


The Pork and Truffle Hotdog ($9) divides the group, I’m not a big fan of the bread as I find it a lil crunchy but the others prefer it as it holds the sauce without disintegrating into mush. The actual sausage is tasty, perfectly seasoned and I loved the novelty of the potato shoestring fries on top.


Oh wow could this photo be blurry enough? Haha I had to put this in tho cos lol I am a lego nut. And I’m sneaking in an early happy Australia Day dudes! Hope you chuck a prawn on the barbie!

 

 

Year of the Dragon + Simon Marnie interview

22 January 2012, 23:27

Aaaaand happy Chinese New year guys! May the year of the dragon bring you prosperity and good health! And hey how about some quick peanut cookies for snacks if your rellies come around? This recipe is awesome and super fast to make.


Of course when it comes to reunions, there is always a feast! Yee Sang is a requisite with our family and our fav is from Istana (Shop 15a, 230-238 Pennant Hills Rd, Thornleigh).


Lo heiiiiiiii toss, toss, toss!


And welcome to any new readers who’ve just found this little corner of my world! Last week I was on 702AM and was interviewed by Simon Marnie in the Spiegeltent at the Sydney Festival and did a mini food tour around Parramatta with the lovely Zoe and Roseanne.


First stop is at Temasek (71 George Street, Parramatta), for seafood laksa and hainanese chicken rice. I know a lot of die hard Malaysian’s will argue on where the best laksa is and I do believe I’m in the Temasek camp :P


For a dose of novelty we drop by t101 (186-190 Church St, Parramatta) for some pizza cones and bubble teas. Cheesy, gooey innards is da bomb!


And to round off our mini food tour we stop by Seasweet (4/354 Church Street, Parramatta) and drool over the pastries. The very sweet manager kindly gives us some delicious baklava to take back for the studio audience and amped up on sugar it’s back on air we go where I may have sounded like an insane teenager doo di doo

 

 

Adora Handmade Chocolate Cafe, Parramatta

19 January 2012, 00:30

I loooooove chocolate. (No duh ChocolateSuze). Heh heart so much. And the other day after a random drive thru the hood, the mothership and I spotted a chocolate shop and lo and behold a new branch of Adora Handmade Chocolate Cafe (2B/103 George St, Parramatta). Edit: that’s their real address but the cafe is located on the corner of Charles St and Union St (thanks Josh!)


I remember scarfing down large amounts of chocolate when Adora was at the Good Food & Wine Show so couldn’t wait to get my chocolate overload and woot jars filled with meringues and pastries galore.


Helloooo precious


Purdy chocolate truffles


Ice cream!


But first some coffee to kickstart the arvo, a beautiful piccolo ($4) comes with a choice of any chocolate from the display, my pick being a velvety smooth passionfruit truffle.


Whenever I see waffles on the menu I have got to order them. It’s like it’s ingrained into my genes man. Waffles + iceccream + chocolate shot ($10) looked promising, the creamy pistachio ice cream was studded with pistachio nubbins but weirdly the waffle tasted like a cinnamon scroll. Which wasn’t bad, buuut not exactly what I was expecting.


The Flourless Chocolate Cake ($4.50) is delicious and dare I use the word moist? Fudgy centre and a dip into the chocolate drizzle makes for a sugar rush.


The mothership has chosen the Mango Panacotta ($4.50) to combat the chocolateness, the pannacotta flecked with vanilla bean would have had the perfect wobble if it was unmolded and is topped with juicy sweet mango pieces.

The cafe is in a bit of a quiet area, near the corporate buildings so the workers nearby opt for ‘real’ food lol but it’s totes within walking distance from the ‘not Circa cafe end’ of the station. Adora opened about 2months ago and it’s great to see more specialised shops and cafes opening in the area and I forsee my moolah disappearing in the way of those truffles mmm

 

 

Sydney Food Bloggers' Picnic 2012

15 January 2012, 17:02

Red solo cup! You are my friend! Ah c’mon noone else watches Glee? Lols on Saturday Helen and I threw our annual food bloggers meetup at Centennial Park and there was a whopping 70 bloggers in attendance. The weather luckily held up and it was freaking awesome to finally put some faces to blogs with our last meetup posts here and here.


Of course it wouldn’t be a food bloggers meetup without crazy amounts of food! Paella, cupcakes, danish, donuts, pinwheels, cajun popcorn, muffins, quiche, cookies, jellies, breads, cheeses, baguettes, brownies and tarts aplenty!


Alright stop, hammer time. Uh I mean photo time!


The delicious smell of burning sugar filled the air thanks to Chris & Tim’s toasted marshmallows.

Simon’s pop up bar was a smash hit with g&t’s and ‘punch’


Rita, me, Josh & Sara, Starloz, Simon, Gianna


Too much sugar wheeee! Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle yeah!


Ello boys! JB and Raff


Cheers yo!


Woohoo our powers combined! (Photo from Simon)

Blogger roundup:
Alex & Sam Annie | April | Ayana | Bernard | Betty | Cathy | Chanel | Chris & Tim | Christine | Dee | Felicity | Gaby | Gianna & Demos | Helen | Helen & Yvonne | Henry | Jack | Jacq | JB | JJ | Joseph & Paul | Karen | Karen | Katie | Kimberley | Laura | Lauren | Lay | Lex | Lola | Lucy | Mary | Maryanne | Mel | Melanie | Michelle | Minh | Muppy | Nic | Penny | Phuoc | Raff | Rhonda | Richard | Richard | Rita | Sara & Josh | Shanshan | Shez | Shierly | Simon | Simon | Sophie | Suze | Suzi | Swah | Tania | Tee | Thanh | Tina | Tina | Vivian | Wendy

Thanks heaps everyone for coming and bringing awesome foods! Add your link below if you’ve posted about the meetup by clicking the blue ‘Add your link’ button:

 

 

Delurking Day

12 January 2012, 00:45

Woahhh yes that’s right guys it’s Delurking Day once again! It’s where I thank you all for reading about my crazy eating adventures and hope you keep swinging by for more laughs! So the point of Delurking Day is to hear from all the lurkers out there, drop me a comment and tell me what you’d like to see more of on ChocolateSuze.com in 2012!

 

 

Super Easy Bacon Topped Maple Glazed Baked Donuts

8 January 2012, 18:54

Woohoo pile o donuts! And what’s better? They gots bacon! Bacon just makes me oh so happy! If bacon make you happy too then gosh darn you gotta make these babies! They’re so freaking easy I think I could make them with my eyes closed. Well not really but these definitely fit into the category of super easy.


Another look of the deliciousness that is just within your reach teehee

The below is a basic baked donut recipe found here and with some tweaks I’ve made them with a maple glaze frosting and topped with crispy bacon bits.


Ingredients.
For the donuts:
2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
10g butter
4 rashers bacon

For the glaze:
1 cup icing sugar
1 Tbsp hot water
1/4 cup maple syrup


First up, bake your bacon for about 20mins on 160C or until crispy. I have issues with frying so I prefer baking and the bacon is more awesome crispy.


Combine all donut ingredients, beat together until well blended.


I was looking and looking for a donut tray because I knew I was going to be baking the donuts instead of frying and when I found this crazy cute pink donut machine for $25 I couldn’t resist. So if you have a donut tray this recipe will most likely only make 12 normal sized donuts, with my mini machine it made about 30 mini donuts.


So if you have the donut tray you need to bake them for 8-10mins at 165C. With the donut machine it only took 2mins.


Let the donuts cool on a wire rack and while they’re cooling chop up your bacon into itty bitty bits.


To make the maple glaze whisk all the ingredients together. If the mixture is too thick just add a bit more hot water much not too much or the glaze will be to runny and won’t set.


Once the donuts have cooled, quickly dip half of the donut into the glaze and set back onto the wire rack.


Hopefully you haven’t gone overboard with the icing on your donuts or you’ll have an icing river on your counter which is hells annoying to clean.


Quickly sprinkle bacon bits on top of the donuts before the glaze sets and leave for about 30mins

Mmm


Bacon! Donut! Maple glaze! It’s calling to you!

 

 

Coffs Harbour Road Trip

4 January 2012, 01:01

OH HAI! How was your nye guys? Hope it was awesome and you’ve all recovered! The boy and I took a pretty spontaneous road trip the other day, with the main aim of getting to the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour. You see, Noods has never been to the Big Banana and I felt it was my duty to educate him on the finer points of tourist attractions. So we left early in the morning and lasted a coupla hours before hitting the first pit stop on the F3 at the Caltex Stopover at Wyong.

BEHOLD THE CRACKLE ON MY ROAST PORK SAMMICH!!! I didn’t really want Maccas and went over to the trucker resto and randomly chose the Roast Pork Sandwich ($6.90) which came on good ol white bread with surprisingly tender pork nubbins with a river of gravy and topped with a glorious piece of crackle. Awesome start to the trip!


The boy has a cheeky grin because he couldn’t help but dig into his big brekkie ($16) before I took a photo. The brekkie had a generous serve of sunny side up eggs, bacon, baked beans, sausage, hashbrown, toast and fries.


Surprisingly Noods and I have never really done a long road trip before. There may or may not have been a power struggle for the music on the ipod haha


For our driver reviver stops we kept our eyes peeled for random food signs, one sign we stalked for about an hour had the claim of ‘best scones on the coast’ and well, who can pass up a scone?


Moorland Cottage was great to recharge and grab a bite to eat. The Devonshire tea ($9p/p) was a steal, 2 freshly baked scones with a pot of raspberry jam, clotted cream and a giant teapot. Our basket had plain and date scones and were super fluffy and light with a buttery crumb. Best on the coast? Quite possibly.


Of course the boy was in need of sustenance that had some form of meat and after several signs taunting us with ‘the best pies are with Marilyn’ we turned a hill and ta dah Fredo Pies (75 Macleay St, Frederickton- north of Kempsey on the Pacific hwy) complete with Marilyn Monroe statues aplenty.


There were heaps of pies available even some of the more crazier types like emu and buffalo but I stuck to a pepper steak pie while Noods went for the Crocodile pie. Pretty tops pie and super friendly staff who were nice enough to print out google maps so we could follow the back roads and avoid the horrible traffic. The lemon meringue pie was a snack for the road and it sure was tasty and the sugar rush helped us stay awake.


Woot almost to Coffs and we see a double rainbow!


Made it to Novotel (cnr Pacific Highway and Bay Drive, Coffs Harbour) and crashed for a bit of a nap.


It’s the Big Banana yo! We made it! Bahahahaha it uh seems smaller than what I remember but that’s most likely because the last time I went I was in primary school lol


Chocolate coated banana with 100’s & 1000’s ($3.95) heh heh get your mind outta the gutter!


Aaaand a banana split ($6.95) which came with banana ice cream, whipped cream, caramel sauce and a sprinkle of nuts. Mmm be still my lactose intolerant gut!


Heh when we saw that there were Segways available we couldn’t resist going on an hour ride ($65p/p) muahaha it was so much fun! We had a practice run around a mini obstacle course learning how to go around corners before our instructor took us past the golf course and onto a bushwalking trail that led through the beach and to a paddock where we roamed freeeee


Wheeeeeeeeee!


After a non-delicious dinner we managed to sleep thru breakfast time and drove down to Anna Bay where I found this crazy awesome cream puff ($3) at Anna Bay Hot Bread (118 Gan Gan Rd, Anna Bay) filled with a caramel so rich and thick it tasted like dulce de leche oh baby breakfast of champions!


Of course all that sugar has to go somewhere… helloooo sand dunes!


Teehee SPLAT


Yeah that was a fun morning though sand just about went everywhere :P After getting smashed by the waves we headed back and stopped at Aussie Bobs Fish and Chips (156 Gan Gan Road, Anna Bay) for lunchies. Sooo can you guess what I’m holding?


So along with their usual fried goodness of fish and chips, Aussie Bobs also had deep fried Mars bars ($4.50) AND DEEP FRIED OREOS ($1)!!! The Oreos tasted GLORRRRIOUS! Light batter, crumbly biscuit and gooey icing innards oh baby.


A couple more hours on Pacific hwy and we spot signs for Ricardoes U-Pick Strawberry Farm (221 Blackmans Point Rd, Port Macquarie) where I finally fulfil my dream of picking my own fruit ($16.90/kg)


Armed with a bucket and scissors we set off into the greenhouse to find perfect hydroponically grown strawberries. The boy is fascinating to watch, he’ll stare at a strawberry for a good 10seconds before deciding if it’s worthy for our collection lol


It was pretty therapeutic actually, super relaxing to just stare at a sea of green instead of the harsh grey of the highway. There was also tomatoes and lettuce which you could pick but we uh didn’t.


Aaaand with our bucket all filled we head home, sandy and happy in the knowledge no blood was shed over ipod control :D

 

 

Farewell 2011!

30 December 2011, 01:49

Well 2011 sure was a doozy hey! Ready for a round up? My favourite post has got to be the Trash the Dress Food Fight 1 year wedding anniversary photo shoot with the awesome Trish. Some girls dream of their perfect wedding but I dreamed of doing the trash the dress shoot. I’m lucky my other half loved me enough to put up with my crazy schemes :D


Hardest post was writing about Noods and his cancer experience. Everything happened so fast and yet it seemed like time froze as we held our breath through the operation and the chemo and finally got the all clear on checkups.


Went to the Easter Show and had a blast making a spoof video.

Finally got to dress up and have a Kill Bill themed party.


Many a night was spent at The Dip, aka my second home where copious amounts of pulled pork nachos and hotdogs and beer were consumed after a hard day at work.


Pledged my allegiance to Cafe Cre Asion where Yu Sasaki makes the best macarons in Sydney. Seriously you guys the strawberry milkshake mac is da bomb diggity!


Went on a whirlwind Tourism NSW food trip following Dan Hong’s tweets and realised being filmed is hellz crazy.


Aaaand finally did some super quick recipes like chocolate chip cookies, Maccas brekkie, Donuts and Nutella cheesecake


Thank you to everyone out there who swing by and read my crazy ramblings, I hope I’ve been entertaining! Do drop me a comment on what you’d like to see more of in 2012 and I wish you guys all the best in the new year! Safe safe, be well, and keep smiling :D