Lorraine's Patisserie, Sydney

Lorraine's Patisserie has been on my Sydney dessert list for years now.  Near the top of the list even.  And yet, it took until my October 2019 visit to finally get to try something from there!

So let me back up and explain.

Lorraine's Patisserie is old school Sydney famous.  Not Instagram famous, not trendy, just, very well known, for a long time, for really quality items.  And in particular, for being the maker of the date tart from Rockpool.  Which gets to the story of Loraine.  She came to her fame as the pastry chef at Rockpool, but before that, worked with Neil Perry at his other restaurants, as she was discovered by him, and it is in his kitchens that she got started, and honed her skills.

She now handles desserts for many of the Rockpool establishments, and has the small storefront patisserie attached to the bakery, tucked away on a little side alley that gets no foot traffic really.  You need to explicitly seek it out.

Which I did.  Many times.  But it is not open on Sundays, often my free day in Sydney, and closes at 5pm during the week, a time I am never able to make it.  I did rush from my office a few times, and made it in the door before 5pm, only to find they were sold out of everything I wanted.

But finally, finally, I got to try the item I was most seeking (not the date tart, actually, although I do want to try that, it is rarely available, as it is so labor intensive to make, and can't be mass produced).  I wish I could claim credit for my success in acquiring a treat, but alas, the credit goes to my co-worker, who picked it up and delivered it to me.

I owe her one.  Because this thing was fantastic!

The pattiserie carries a range of pastries like croissants and muffins, simple takeway treats like cookies, brownies, fancy marshmallows, and truffles, plus a slew of fairly well known items like a rhubarb pie, kalamansi cake, a few other tarts, a classic cheesecake ... but I was there for another famous item: the mascarpone cake.  If you've heard of Black Star Pastry, and their famous strawberry watermelon cake, it is said to be the inspiration of that.

Mascarpone Cake. $10.

"Lightened mascarpone, layered with crisp coconut dacquoise, fresh strawberries."

So, what do we have here?  A layered cake, three layers of coconut sponge, mascarpone and whipped cream, fresh strawberries, crispy coconut, and a lightly torched bruleed top.  Oh my.

This cake just nails all the elements of texture and balance.  Slightly crisp top.  Crispy bits throughout from the toasted coconut.  Creamy mascarpone.  Fluffy whipped cream.  Juicy fruit.  Soft cake.  Sweetness from the fruit, heaviness from the mascarpone, lightness from the cake and whipped cream.  Really, just amazingly well designed and executed, nothing dominated, yet everything was able to shine.  It would be so easy to have the ratios slightly off, too much mascarpone would make it too heavy, too much whipped cream would dilute the flavors.  This was just perfect.

For me, the only thing I didn't love was the coconut.  I do like coconut, but sometimes I just don't want it.  And this was one of those times.  I still wanted the textural component, but, I just didn't really want the flavor of it.  That is just my preference though, as this was basically perfect.