My little sister had never been to Adriano Zumbo’s patisserie. While I had brought the occasional macaron home on my travels, I thought it was about time she tried the amazingly quirky creations of the man himself. I don’t get over to Zumbo as often as I’d like to, since I live on the other side of Sydney, but it’s always an experience, complete with sugar high and occasionally tummy ache. She was on school holidays and I had the day off, so the timing was perfect. It helped of course, that it was Mousse Cake Day.

That’s right, Zumbo’s infamous Masterchef mousse cake, in miniature form. The lovely Gourmet Rabbit even had a cake put away for me, which was fantastic, because they sold out so quickly that I would have otherwise missed out. It seems that even months after the Masterchef finale, the hype around Zumbo has yet to die down. And now I can understand it. Not only is the mousse cake absolutely beautiful to look at, the taste is sublime. Layers of chocolate mousse are interspersed with biscuit, apple and caramel to produce a masterpiece.

It was also a great opportunity to check out the new Summer/Autumn collection called ‘I thought it, you brought it, I built it, you bought it”, which was as wacky as ever. Who would ever have thought to put mashed potato or cauliflower or mustard in a cake! Although the cakes themselves seem to be slightly smaller than in the past, there are some beautiful summery flavours combined with the same skill, technique and originality that Zumbo is famous for.

We tried two cakes from the collection, as well as a handful of macarons. The first was “Not too S-h-a-b-b-y”, a flourless biscuit with muscovado crème brulee, plantation chocolate mousse and chocolate malt crème legere. It tasted like a super sophisticated version of a cake my grandmother makes, and was absolutely delicious.

The “5 6 7 8” was a gorgeous and summery cake – pineapple palm sugar sous vide, lemongrass, pandan and vanilla crème legere, coriander creameaux and peanut sable. I was intrigued by the use of coriander in the cake, but it worked brilliantly and tasted incredible. I liked that it was not overly sweet, but each individual flavour stood out in the different components that made up the cake.

I hadn’t had a macaron since our insanity on Zumbo’s Macaron Day back in November, but I was nonetheless excited to check out the new flavours. We bought Summer Pudding, Peach Bellini, Strawberry and Balsamic and Pineapple Coconut. All of the flavours were strong and true, I especially liked the Pineapple and Coconut flavour, and the Summer Pudding had a hint of “breadiness” to it that worked wonderfully.

Adriano Zumbo Patisserie, 296 Darling St Balmain
http://adrianozumbo.com