Am I the only one being tempted by a good bakery? I don’t think so. Here are a few words and recipes from a few tempting Sydney bakeries.
Today’s post is going to be challenging, first because of computer issues (mine is at the computer doctor) and also because I am missing a few photos because i could not complete a recipe… Not a complete disaster but well….I ran out of eggs ! I was making the first stage of a brioche dough which I will use to make small brioches for school (and me at work :-)) lunchboxes, when I realised the egg-situation. I was short of one egg! How could that be possible? There were two boxes of eggs in the fridge, but, as i found out, almost empty ones. No blame there on households habits! I should have known better, it is towards the end of the week.
I manage for my brioche dough, being one egg short but using some egg-wash from yesterday as a complement, however I did not get to prepare my gluten free raspberry chocolate fondant! You will understand the link in a moment.
Some bakeries I like in Sydney…
What do I like in a bakery? First I would have to like the products, maybe not all, but enough to come back (except if really outpriced!). Second, it is about the people and how the bakery comes through on the social plan.
Do you know that on weekends, you can make great bakeries discoveries when you wonder to some markets like the Paddington market, the Orange Grove market, the Carriage Works market, Pyrmont market (which I have never been to) and so on.
There are quite a number of good bakeries these days: Iggys, Bourke St bakery, Brickfield, Labancz, Grumpy baker, Zumbo, Bondi Organic Republic (thought I have not been there for ages, this is their new name), and plenty more. Let’s chat about Bourke St Bakery, Flour and Stone, and Brickfield Bakery.
Bourke St Bakery
Bourke St Bakery opened quite a while ago, initially in Surry Hills, they quickly became a reference bakery. The products are very good as you will first experience by the size of the queue, then directly trying not to buy too much! There are now a number of other shops, often easier to get to. Their bread is really good!
Apart from their amazing bread, Bourke St bakery does a lot of small cakes and viennoiseries. They have a book on pretty much most of their products called “The ultimate baking companion”. I borrowed the book recently at our local library and have been trying a few recipes. I still have 
not returned the book, I would like to try some of the shortcrust pastries! I found that for a novice to bread making (I am not one of them) the bread recipes are a bit too technical or skipping a few explanation which would be very useful. For the other recipes, the recipes are great, beware of the quantities, they are designed for large volumes! Also beware that they use fresh yeast and not dry yeast. I did get caught on one recipe, I was furious with myself!
Tip: Rule of thumb: Dry yeast x 3 (in grams) = fresh yeast in grams
I tried a bread from that book, it was nice, oups, no photos. Otherwise, from that book:
The Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins (CLICK CLICK FOR RECIPE). 
They are truly delicious, I highly recommend you do them. They please adults and children!
The chocolate prune brownie (CLICK CLICK !!!). I love the use of the 
soaked prune in that brownie, but it is very strong in chocolate (too much) and way too sweet for me. That said, I brought it to work, left it on the bench with a little note in the office shared kitchen and I could hear people coming back from the kitchen and their comments of appreciation (most had not even read to the bottom of the very short note to check who baked them!). Of course, there was no left overs. I also recommend respecting the cooking time, if the top seem stable, the bottom may be too gooey, decrease the oven and keep baking! I had to put mine straight back in the oven (the photo was taken when i first got it out).
The croissants and pains au chocolat. They were extra! Since we cannot 
eat 24 croissants and 24 pains au chocolat upfront, I froze the croissants and pains au chocolat just after making them (uncooked, before the last rising). I take them out the evening before breakfast, egg-wash them and let them on the kitchen bench on the tray i will bake them in, i cover them with a large humidified plastic box and bake in the morning. In terms of aesthetics, it does the trick, but i find they do not taste as good as when not frozen. I am not placing the recipe here, if you want it, contact me.
The rest very soon! I need to do my raspberry chocolate cake before speaking of Flour and Stone and it is getting late for today.
