The Rabbit Hole

#sweetweek continues in Sydney! The Rabbit Hole is such a delightful place – offering a huge range of organic teas, plus a cabinet full of sweets and a brunch menu, there’s something here for everyone. I started out with a cup of choc orange fudge tea (with soy milk), which was served in the cutest little cup, with a white rabbit etched into it – the handle was the rabbit’s fluffy tail! Adorable. Given the scent was so sweet, I added sugar to the tea so that the flavour matched my nose’s expectations – with this tweak, I enjoyed the quite large cup. The first sweet was a piece of lavender shortbread, iced and topped with edible flowers. The shortbread was so thin and crumbly that you could almost imagine all of the butter within. The icing added another level of sweetness, although I didn’t really pick up any lavender flavour. To match with the tea, I also had a chocolate orange whoopie pie (kind of like a soft Butterbing), which was the perfect pairing. The chocolate cake-bit was so soft and spongy, and the orange-flavoured cream inside had a great citrus flavour. Certainly not your traditional desserts, but lovely nonetheless.

The Rabbit Hole Organic Tea Bar, 146 Abercrombie Street, Redfern, NSW, http://www.therabbithole.com.au/

Cafe Comme Ca

I’ve been eating a lot of sweets lately, so I declare this to be #sweetweek, starting with a flashback to my favourite cake shop ever. Ah, Cafe Comme Ca. The lovely Shinjuku store with its fun lighting, creative wall art and immaculate display cabinet was our first dessert stop in Tokyo (of course!). We were seated in the back corner which has a great view of the cake decoration space (so much fruit being styled into perfect shapes!) and the wait staff bench where the delicate cocoa shapes are dusted onto the plates – the secret is a stencil, if you hadn’t guessed already. I adore their fruity cakes, so picked one with raspberry, strawberry and mango on a flaky pastry base. All of the cakes here are beautifully creamy and this was no exception. The vibrant flavour of the strawberries and raspberries matched the bold tropical mango perfectly. I also tried their seasonal iced tea – black tea with apple. It came out in a large glass with plenty of ice and was really refreshing. I like black iced teas that aren’t too bitter and this was just lovely. I can’t recommend Cafe Comme Ca highly enough – guaranteed to satisfy your inner foodie, design junkie and fruit artist (because here, that’s a thing).

Cafe Comme Ca, 5F Comme Ca Store, 3-26-6 Shinjuku-ku, Shinjuku Tokyo http://www.cafe-commeca.co.jp/ (Japanese only)

Pepper Lunch

I dined as a guest of Pepper Lunch; all opinions are my own . As part of the generous meal at their launch, Pepper Lunch also included a complimentary dessert soft-serve – hello #icecreamthurs! I am a huge fan of soft serve, and I feel like the benchmark in Canberra has been set pretty high, with this delight from XO in Narrabundah. I was very excited to see that Pepper Lunch offers a range of Asian-inspired flavour toppings for their vanilla soft serve, including black sesame (unavailable at the launch) and green tea (matcha), along with caramel and chocolate options. Both my friend and I picked the matcha, which came in a huge cup and had green tea syrup and powder swirled throughout. The icecream itself was really creamy, and I loved that it was already starting to melt slightly as I ate it. I was a bit surprised at how subtle the matcha flavour was – usually matcha has quite a strong, bitter taste that you either love or hate, but this version seemed to be missing that bold flavour, which can be great or disappointing, depending on your view of matcha. Personally, I would have liked a stronger flavour, but I really enjoyed the vanilla soft serve.

Pepper Lunch, 88-96 Bunda Street (next to Oliver Brown) Canberra, http://www.pepperlunch.com.au/

Space Kitchen

My quest to try all of the Ricardo’s/Space cakes continued at a friend’s baby shower held at Space. Everyone else ordered lunch – I ordered cake. I’ve had my eye on the Cookie Monster ($9.90) for a while now, and this was clearly the moment. Now, I must advise you of two exciting facts about this cake (apart from the fact that it is both blue and named after the Sesame Street character, which you will have gathered already). One, it is large. Like, you may doubt your ability to eat it yourself, large. But wait… Two, it is light! Hooray, you can enjoy it all to yourself. The giant macaron top cracks open to reveal a half-mousse half-sponge filling, dotted with Oreos. Mmm. Oreos. The texture is quite unusual, but definitely in a good way – everything is surprisingly smooth and even though it looks blue, chocolate biscuit is the dominant flavour. I did largely eat this myself, and didn’t feel bloated or overly smashed by sugar afterwards, so there’s a good balance in terms of density and sweetness. Given the size I also rate this highly on value (especially when you don’t have to share!).

Space Kitchen, Skypark, corner of Furzer and Worgan Streets, Phillip ACT, http://space-kitchen.com.au/

Jamface

So, I was pretty excited to head back to Jamface after my last visit, again for cakes, but this time takeaway. We picked three to share – the peach crumble ($6.50), lemon curd & raspberry coulis tart ($5.50) and the apricot custard tart ($6.50). Each had its own distinctive highlights, but if hard-pressed, I would say the apricot tart was my favourite, just for sheer strength of flavour. The texture of this tart was spectacular, with a spongy soft custard layer that heightened the intense apricot flavour – these were high perfoming apricots, let me tell you. Next was probably the peach crumble. I’m a huge crumble fan, and I love it when the crumble mix is just right. Jamface gets it 100% right, with no dryness and plenty of luscious peach packed under the dusted crumble topping. The pastry shell is also quite lovely and adds to the whole dessert. It’s probably unfair putting the lemon and raspberry tart last, as I really enjoyed it – again, the textures were spot on, with a really rich, smooth creaminess from the curd and tonnes of flavour from the raspberry – it’s a tart tart, but definitely has enough sweetness for balance. All winners, for sure.

Jamface, Stall 28-29, Adelaide Central Markets, Adelaide SA, http://www.jamface.com.au

7 Apples Gelato

Ok, if you’ve seen it, you know that the 7 Apples Gelato store in Emporium isn’t just cute, it’s the most freaking adorable icecreamery ever. A little icecream cart with a bicycle attached, this tiny stall sucked me in with free samples and sorbet options. Who could resist? Offering a limited range (around 8 flavours – their main store is in St Kilda) on their cute menu board, I opted for a single scoop of the mango sorbet ($5.50), which was served in a reasonably sized up and had a creamy, pale colour. The mango flavour was nice – authentic, but not as strong as other mango sorbets I’ve tried in Melbourne – and there was a good amount of sweetness to it. The texture was again around the mid-range of quality – not the creamiest I’ve ever tried, but not overly icy either, so definitely in the solidly ‘good’ category. I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to order this flavour again (nice was it was), given the range of flavours they offer, but I would recommend stopping by, if only to marvel at the set up, uniform and, of course, to enjoy the free samples!

7 Apples Gelato, Emporium Melbourne (Level 3), 287 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne VIC, http://www.7applesgelato.com/

Ricardo’s Cafe

One of my 2016 goals is to work my way through the cake menu at Ricardo’s – I feel like I started this quest with a bang! I am a huge fan of Snickers bars, and the Ricardo’s interpretation on this classic chocolate bar is utterly divine. Firstly, the size of this cake is just right (I’d say it’s even slightly bigger than your average icecream) for an afternoon tea snack, but be prepared for rich decandence! The peanuts scattered over the outer shell are dusted in edible gold sparkly dust (yep, that’s the technical term), making it not only tasty (peanuts) but also very pretty (sparkly!). Inside is a magical mix of chocolate mousse and liquid salted caramel, which oozes out from the centre of the cake. I love chocolate mousse and this one, coated in a layer of chocolate, was divine. The entire flavour effect realy does taste like a Snickers, but much fresher. Texturally, the crunch of the peanuts and the soft mousse plus the thick caramel is delightful. Yep, this is a very sweet (but not heavy) interpretation of a classic chocolate bar. Yum.

Ricardo’s Cafe, Jamison Plaza, Bowman Street, Macquarie ACT, ricardoscafe.com/