Category Archives: vanilla slice

Drummoyne Bakehouse Cafe, Drummoyne

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

150 Lyons Rd, Drummoyne, New South Wales
drummoynesbakehousecafe.com.au

The focus of my ongoing quest turned from chasing reports of the “best vanilla slice” in Sydney to seeking alleged sighting of the “best sausage roll”. One of these sightings was at the Drummoyne Bakehouse Cafe, which seemed a good excuse to go for a lazy Saturday lunchtime drive during a brief sunny respite from the rainy winter weather of late.

Drummoyne Bakehouse Cafe

The bakehouse sits on the busy but narrow Lyons Road, running down the centre of the Drummoyne peninsula on the south side of Sydney Harbour. It has a distinctive green, yellow, and brown striped awning and signage visible from the road, and sits next door to Ocean Foods, which also has conspicuous signage, proclaiming it to be the home of the “Best fish and chips in the Universe”. They certainly don’t do things by halves in Drummoyne!

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Pierre’s Patisserie, Turramurra

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

Shop 8/1380 Pacific Highway, Turramurra, New South Wales
www.pierrespatisserie.com.au

On a fine winter Sunday afternoon, after a relatively light lunch, the call of afternoon tea beckoned, and I decided to make the trip and check out a place that garners a mention in various “best vanilla slice in Sydney” discussion threads on the Internet. The place is Pierre’s Patisserie, on the Pacific Highway in Turramurra, in Sydney’s northern suburbs.

Pierre's Patisserie

According to the potted history on the website, Pierre’s was founded in 1976 by immigrant Frenchman Pierre Cantin. He was not, however a pastry chef, so hired two chefs, who preceded to build a reputation in the local area. The current owner and chef is the son of one of those two, and appears to have maintained the local praise for this establishment.

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The Little French Patisserie, Mosman

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

840 Military Rd, Mosman, New South Wales
tlfp.com.au

One of the nicest things about having a day off work during the week is that you can travel around the city when everyone else is at work. Everything is open, but the streets are populated mostly by people with free time, and the atmosphere is very relaxed and laid back, unlike when hordes of 9-5 workers are around after hours or on weekends.

The Little French Patisserie

On such a fine day, I took a drive to the posh north shore suburb of Mosman, to partake of some of its fine array of victuals. Mosman boasts a swag of high fashion outlets, boutiques, and a high end toy shop featuring such children’s playthings as rocking horses and hand carved wooden soldiers. On the food side, there is a gourmet butcher, and Italian delicatessen, a specialty cheese shop, plenty of trendy cafes, and this place: The Little French Patisserie.

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Gerringong Bakery and Cafe, Gerringong

bakery, cafe, country, nsw, vanilla slice

123 Fern St, Gerringong, New South Wales

Gerringong is a small town nestled on the coast a couple of hours south of Sydney. The town spills down a steep hill to a picturesque beach surrounded by grassy headlands. It’s one of those tidy little towns close enough yet far enough from a major city to turn into a haven for day trippers, and thus end up with a main street full of trendy antique shops and rustic country home goods, but so far this transition seems to be only partly complete.

Gerringong Bakery

There are still some typical country town establishments, one of them being the local bakery and cafe, which goes by the original and creative name of the Gerringong Bakery and Cafe. It occupies a recently repainted brick building in the middle of the main strip, which looks very neat and modern from the outside. Inside, it’s clean, with modern fittings, but the building has have obviously been there considerably longer than the most recent paint job. The bakery holds a very typical selection of bread loaves and buns, as well as counter displays of various traditional Aussie treats: Neenish tarts, custard tarts, Anzac biscuits, meringues, apple slices, and also not one, but two lookalike items named after branded trademark names: wagon wheels and (giant sized) iced vovos.

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Homestyle Bakery, Mosman

bakery, city, nsw, vanilla slice

783 Military Rd, Mosman, New South Wales

Having already procured lunch from elsewhere, I decided a dessert was in order, and found Homestyle Bakery on the busy main street of Mosman.

Homestyle Bakery

This is one of the anonymous shopfront bakeries with functional but perfunctory ageing steel and glass sliding doors that are ubiquitous in suburbs crying out for a little touch of urban renewal to spruce them up. It’s operated by a Vietnamese woman who serves me with a minimum of fuss, as I photograph the tray of offerings that bears the label “French vanilla sliced”.

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Hellenic Bakery and Cakes, Marrickville

bakery, city, nsw, vanilla slice

371 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville, New South Wales
www.hellenicbakerymarrickville.com.au

I was on my way home from a business function in an unfamiliar neighbourhood when I stumbled across Hellenic Bakery and Cakes, just a stone’s throw from Marrickville railway station. Peering into the unlikely looking 1990s semi-brutalist concrete exterior, I discovered an Aladdin’s cave of wondrous treasures.

Hellenic Bakery

Mounds of Greek pastries and cakes filled display counters that rose above eye level on three sides of the dimly lit store: baklava, kataifi, poura, galaktobouriko, Greek shortbread. Amongst these are more diverse wares: cannoli, eclairs, macarons, lamingtons, tiramisu, tarts, and all manner of cakes. In the centre of the room was a table laden heavily with freshly baked bread and buns. Anything and everything looked incredibly tempting, but my eyes fell upon a golden radiance emanating from one corner of this treasure pile. A tray of humble vanilla slices beckoned, promising release of the genie of deliciousness if I would but rub some coins in my pocket and hand them over to the elderly Greek woman who was tending the counter.

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The Cake Man, Lane Cove

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

Shop 5A, 23-25 Burns Bay Rd, Lane Cove NSW
www.thecakeman.com.au

2016-02-28_01-57-52

Looking up a local bakery to go for lunch, I had originally intended to go to The Pottery Green bakery at Lane Cove. Upon arriving, they didn’t have any vanilla slices, so I went for a walk and found The Cake Man instead. This is a place occupying both sides of an entire arcade between the pedestrian mall and the parking lot at Lane Cove, a locality in the northern suburbs of Sydney. They have a take-away cafe with a few dining tables, a separate fancy cake shop, a restaurant and wine bar, plus their actual bakery and kitchens at this location.

The sausage roll and vanilla slice were described exactly thus by little plaques in the display cabinet and pie warmer – although there was also a “caramelised mille feuille” which looked tempting. The server requested I took a seat at the tables outside, and the items were bought out to me on little plates with serviettes and cutlery.

The Cake Man

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Mara’s Italian Pastry, San Francisco

cafe, overseas, vanilla slice

503 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, USA
www.sanfranciscorestaurants.com/maras-italian-pastry/

I was visiting San Francisco for a conference, and outside of conference hours I spent some time exploring the city. The North Beach area is famous for its Italian heritage and modern day Italian restaurants. Mixed in with the pizza and pasta places are a few little pastry shops. One is the famous Stella Pastry & Cafe, which I’ve visited before and is so good that I wanted to return for dessert after a dinner nearby. But alas, for the week that I was in town, Stella’s was closed for renovations!

Mara's Italian Pastry

But this being North Beach, fortunately I didn’t have to go far to discover another Italian pastry shop. I was walking down Columbus Avenue when my eyes were drawn to the sugar-laden windows of Mara’s Italian Pastry. This hole-in-the-wall was a tiny cafe with only three small tables inside, and a counter loaded up with biscotti and other baked goodies. The real treat was in the front window, however, which contained succulent looking fruit danishes, poppy seed cakes, slices, rolls, and countless other delicacies. There were also a couple of trays of square dish pizzas, cut into slices, for anyone silly enough to come in here and want something savoury.

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Krispy Kreme

special, vanilla slice

My work has a social club, in which a monthly fee gets you access to various events and give-aways throughout the year. Today they had free doughnuts. Now, I’m not a member of the club, and I don’t eat doughnuts (I like them well enough but I gave them up completely a long time ago as a concession to healthy eating), but it turned out that the selection – from Krispy Kreme – included a “vanilla slice doughnut”! And when the call went out that leftovers were available for people to claim seconds, a friend of mine grabbed one of these for me. So I decided to violate my 20-year abstinence solely for the purpose of research for this blog.

Vanilla slice doughnut

The doughnut is neither a traditional toroidal doughnut nor rectangular prism vanilla slice shape. It’s a square pillow of dough, presumably cooked by deep frying as is usual for the product. The surface of the dough glistens disturbingly with fat and sugar. The top side is coated with what looks very much like conventional vanilla slice icing: a thin layer of white topped by a pattern of brown lines dragged into the classic parenthesis shape. With some trepidation, I take a bite.

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Sweet Infinity, Sydney

cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

Shop 18, Strand Arcade, 412-414 George St, Sydney, New South Wales
sweetinfinity.com.au

This is a tiny cafe in the upmarket Strand Arcade in the heart of Sydney. The Strand is an historical Victorian era shopping arcade, lovingly restored and full of quaint little shops that offer exclusive services such as bridal fashion, jewellery, antiques, high fashion, millinery, a shoe maker (an actual workshop with a guy hand-making shoes from large sheets of leather), fancy chocolates, cigars, a shoe-shine service, and a barber with fully reclining chairs on which men lie back and have their faces lathered for a cut-throat shave.

Sweet Infinity

Amidst this, Sweet Infinity offers tea and coffee, and a selection of fancy looking and lovingly made baked goods. Mrs Snot Block and Roll and I looked in a few months ago and noticed that they serve pies and sausage rolls, as well as various cakes and slices, including a vanilla slice. So we stored it away in our memories for another day. Today was that day.

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