Brad and I often spend our Saturday or Sunday mornings or lunches in South Yarra, usually because I'll say 'We can get lunch at [insert Mad Mex, Dukes, or other delicious cafe type places]', he'll go 'Sounds good', then I'll sheepishly finish up with... 'AND THEN! ....we can go get sweets....?'
To which he looks at me, sighs, laughs, complains how I always have ulterior motives, but goes with me anyway.
I do tend to be a little bit devious like that, I'll always suggest lunch or dinner somewhere...because there might be another place I would like to visit as well.
Well today's agenda after brunch was Burch and Purchese, the delightfully pink sweet studio on Chapel Street, belonging to Ian Burch and Darren Purchese, from the UK (if I'm not mistaken..?)
When I told my friend of the place, she commented 'Oh it's a dessert place? I thought it was a new make up store!'
One can understand where she is coming from, it you were to look from across the road, it does look rather pink and girly inside. But not that silly fluro pink colour, it's that soothing rosé wine colour with matching brown tones for the counters and desks. It's a little bit of a wonderland with bursts of colour coming from the cake display, which were being refilled as we walked in, elegantly packaged goodies tidily lining the shelves and edible artwork with flowers coming out of the wall. It certainly grabs your attention quite quickly.
Some ladies had arrived before us and were giddily running around touching and trying everything and talking to Ian Burch himself who very kindly took them around the little shop. I'm a bit shy when it comes to chefs, I'm not very good at taking pictures or saying hi, I tend to feel a bit intrusive...need to work on that.
Each mini cake in the cake display comes with a neat card listing just about every ingredient in each of the cakes. It's amazing how much stuff is in there! How on earth do they pack it all in there?!
It was incredibly difficult to decide which to bring home with me, but with some help from Brad, I decided to veer away from my usual chocolate goodies and try something a little bit different.
I apologise for the weird lighting, terrible pictures and odd coloration. I was shooting them inside when I got home, got frustrated with the shadows, took them outside and got lazy to adjust my white balance. Blah blah photographer talk.
Anyway. I also feel a bit stupid because I was going to hold on to the paper describing what was in each of these and I've cleverly lost them both. Ah well.
The square cake with the macaron on it is a green tea concoction with lemon, white chocolate and some pistachio (I think....). Oh my goodness. So yum. It was so light, maybe a touch heavy handed with the lemon but still fantastic. The white chocolate mousse bit was like air, it was that fluffy!
The round cake, was a beautiful mix of raspberry, lychee and champagne...amongst other things. But why is it so white?
Well surprise, surprise, it's all pink on the inside! I think this might have been my favourite of the two, although it was hard to pick, it was light and berrylicious. My mother doesn't usually like buying cakes from stores as they tend to be too sweet for her (and hence why she is amazing at baking), but she really enjoyed both of these cakes as well, commenting on how the flavours were great and that they weren't too sweet.
So whilst I do enjoy my rich chocolate indulgences now and again, Burch and Purchese's playful and colourful approach to their cakes was very enjoyable.
Burch and Purchese Sweet Studio
647 Chapel Street
South Yarra, 3141
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