Thoughtful Gifts – LVLY.com

Hello My Dearest Reader’s apologies for the short hiatus! I’ve got so much to update you, I have recently started a new job, so that has kept my very busy! But I will provide you a full update in my next post 🙂 Today I have a super fun post to share with you! I was recently introduced to Lvly.com an online service which delivers ‘small, thoughtful gifts delivered same day Melbourne’.

The concept is super easy, you jump online choose the gift you would like to send to a loved one, customise the gift by adding additional items, order before 1pm and same day delivery is guaranteed. Perfect as a last minute gift if you have accidentally forgotten someone’s birthday or just want to surprise a special person at work ~

Lvly Hug-a-mug set from $38

The LVLY team were very nice and sent me their new LVLY Hug-amug set which includes a 250g Mork Junior Dark (50% cacao) with a twin pack of fluffy marshmallows from Sweetness The Patisserie. I can’t think of a better gift right now especially since it’s been so cold! Yesterday was the coldest morning Melbourne has experienced for over 18 years! So nothing beats a hot chocolate 😀

Imagine receiving this at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon on hump day, when you just want the day to be over. You can make yourself a piping hot chocolate at your desk and pop a marshmallow inside and watch it melt slightly.

Let me show you! The marshmallows are so squishy, soft and fluffy! When I order a Lvly hug-a-mug set for someone I will definitely order more marshmallows because 2 is simply not enough.

How good does this hot chocolate look? Sorry guys I’m not sharing haha I wouldn’t even let Mr Bao have a sip so please make your own hehe just kidding!

I’ve really enjoyed my gift from Lvly and already have my eyes set on their LVLY Posy subscription where you receive one bunch of posy a week for four weeks. And yes they are for myself haha who said you can’t order gifts for yourself! Ok ok I might get Mr Bao a LVLY Little sucker a little concrete pot plant and I might add a chocolate fix to it just because I’m so nice.

Thanks again LVLY.com for the gift and for more information please check out their website.

This is a sponsored by LVLY.com all opinions are honest and true. 

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Share a Churros Week support Beyond Blue – San Churros

Today’s post is a little different, of course it’s all about churros those delectable fried Spanish Donuts that San Churros specialising in making but more importantly it’s about their campaign to support beyondblue – an independent non-profit organisation working to address issues associated with depression, anxiety disorders and related mental illnesses.

San Churros has launched ‘Share A Churros Week’ and from the 15th-21st of June (this week) every churros sold $1 will be donated to beyondblue. When I was asked if I would like to help promote this campaign I couldn’t have said any quicker. Unfortunately, a few people very close to me suffer from depression and anxiety, I have seen first hand how it affects them. Therefore, if there’s anything I can do to support and help the charity I will definitely do it.

I wanted to share with some facts about depression and anxiety:
– 45 per cent of people will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime
– On average, 1 in 6 people will experience depression at some stage of their lives
– Anxiety is the most common mental condition in Australia
– On average, 1 in 4 people will experience anxiety
– At least six Australians take their own lives every day

For more information please visit the beyondblue website 🙂

I know it’s very important for people who suffer depression and anxiety to have the support from family and friends. Therefore, it’s a great concept of ‘Share A Churros’ because I honestly believe food can bring people together and because there’s endorphins in chocolate hehe that’s why I asked a dear friend of mine Catherine from Sweet Empire to go to San Churros and have a churros feast with me.

The are quite a few San Churros outlets in Melbourne, we found the one in Westfield Knox in Wantirna to be the closest to us both. We met at the newly renovated store it is much bigger and spacious compared to the kiosk they use to have inside the shopping centre.

With plenty of seating inside and sunlight shining through it is a great place for business meeting, afternoon tea and dessert after dinner. They also have comfy black leather sofas which is where to settled down and ordered our drinks.

Azteca Chilli Spanish Hot Chocolate $5.95

I can never leave without ordering the Azteca Spanish Hot chocolate which is chilli flavoured. If you haven’t had a Spanish hot chocolate before, I am warning you now it is VERY VERY thick haha and not everyone will like it! I personally love it! It is so thick it’s more like a pudding especially when it’s a little colder and thickens up. The subtle chilli taste gives it some more heat and perfect for a cold winter night. They have other flavours for the hot chocolate which I like too such as the peanut butter!

Churros For Two $14.95

We then ordered a Churros For Two because it’s the perfect amount churros for us. Instead of milk and dark chocolate we decided to try something different and order the white chocolate which tasted a little like condense milk and dulce de leche (which is cooked condense milk to make a caramel).

Thanks Catherine for being the hand model 🙂 Just look at that creamy dulce de leche! I’ve had the churros so many times haha my old office use to be walking distance to San Churros so yes I was a regular. They are made to order and freshly baked, never too oily and always crispy on the outside and soft inside with cinnamon sugar sprinkled over.

Fondue for Two $24.95

I would’ve loved to invite more people, but they were all working and hey who said two can’t be a party 😛 We didn’t have breakfast so this made up for it, we ordered the Fondue For Two which had a great range of condiments. Firstly a big pot of melted dark chocolate that is a must for a fondue. Then for dipping you had churros (of course!), fresh strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, brownies, macarons (pistachio & NY Cheesecake), pretzels and chocolate truffles! WOW!

 

Just looking at this platter makes me smile and want to share it with all my friends. I swear I have collected at least 3 fondue sets over the years, but I’ve never gotten around to using them. When I really should because it is such a great idea for dinner parties and so fun to eat using these little skewers.

Catherine as the hand model again ~ why is it always so hard to pick up the strawberries hurry up I want to eat you 😛

There we go the money shot! Fresh strawberries dipped in melted chocolate my favourite! What’s your favourite? We had such a great time chatting and fully indulging ourselves in churros and chocolate.

San Churros will be donating an extra $1 if you share your photos on Instagram and tag #shareachurros

So please do me a favour and visit San Churros if you can this week, order some churros, share with your friends and help raise money for beyondblue!

San Churros Knox
Number 3110a
Knox City Shopping Centre
425 Burward Hwy
Please visit the San Churros website for the closest outlet near you.

Daisy@Nevertoosweet and Catherine dined at San Churros as their guest and Haystac all opinions are true and honest. 

 

Nutella and Peanut Butter French Toast – Rustica Sourdough

Rustica Sourdough Cafe

I’m such a stalker, I am always stalking my foodie friends on Instagram to see what new cafe/restaurant they have recently visited and Rustica Sourdough is one that has been coming up on my feed quite frequently. But my ever growing ‘to-go’ list, it simply slipped my mind. Hence, that’s why I jumped up in joy when I received the email from ID Collective to visit Rustica Sourdough cafe.

We were very lucky and found parking just around the corner, and that’s where we realised Rustica Sourdough is actually opposite from Hammer and Tong another popular cafe 🙂 The cafe staff were all very friendly and welcoming, immediately showing us to the table they reserved for us.

Flat White $3.8

Mr Bao has been working quite hard so dragging him out on a Saturday morning (it was closer to midday 11am!) isn’t easy. So a lot of bribing and coffee is required to wake him up. He’s recently changed his preference and opted for a flat white, he found the coffee to be very floral in taste and with a softer body.

Monsieur Truffe Hot Chocolate $5

I would never pass the chance to have a hot chocolate, but when it’s using Monsieur Truffe chocolate I will definitely order it! For those who don’t know Monsieur Truffe is a boutique chocolate maker in Melbourne, and seriously their hot chocolates are one that should not be missed! This one did not disappoint and I found the native flowers in the background to be so pretty too.

Grandmother Ham, heirloom tomatoes, avocado crush, Merideth feta + Sweet basil sourdough $16.50

I already had my eyes and heart set on the french toast, so I tried to choose a healthier dish as my brunch and it was this sweet basil sourdough topped with Grandmother ham, heirloom tomatoes, crush avocado and Merideth feta. As the name of their cafe/bakery suggests their sourdough is absolutely scrumptious, lightly tense with a slight tangy aftertaste. I particularly enjoyed the moist and flavoursome Grandmothers ham which wasn’t too salty. I know I am being greedy but I would’ve perhaps like an egg or two on top of my sourdough, only because I am an egg yolk addict!

Beef brisket burger with Chipotle mayo, herb slaw and pickles on Brioche bun $17.50

Mr Bao wanted something substantial so nothing beats a beef brisket burger with pickles, herb slaw and French fries with Chipotle mayo. The beef brisket was very tender and flavoursome, only needed some more Chipotle mayo inside. Great lunch dish and highly recommend if you like brisket!

Would you like a bite? Hehe

We had a short break before we moved onto dessert and that is the French Toast using brioche topped with fresh peanut butter, Nutella, strawberry jam, ice-cream, chopped hazelnuts and chocolate cookie crumbs. Now please tell me that sounds AMAZING!

Brioche French Toast with peanut butter, strawberry jam, Nutella, Chocolate cookie crumbs and hazelnuts $16.50

I simply can’t get over the fact, how pretty this French toast is and it has all my favourite ingredients! Especially the peanut butter, Nutella and fresh strawberries! Everything just worked so well, and the brioche was so soft and buttery, the texture resembled a little bit like pancakes! I can’t recommend this enough so please do yourself a favour and try! Because it’s so good had to share another photo hehe

Too pretty! Another shot 🙂

We had such a lovely time at Rustica Sourdough, blown away by the service, food and more importantly the bread and pastries. Look look! I already need to plan a revisit and not eat anything but the croissant, cronut, and fig + peanut butter tart!

As we were heading out one of the friendliest staff stopped us and said they had a little goodie bag for us to take home. We were completely not expecting anything and it was definitely not a little bag, there were so many things in the bag – sourdough, pastries and doughnuts!

Profiteroles, Cronut and Chocolate Croissant

All that flakey pastry just staring at me and telling me to ‘Eat it, Eat it’! But I was unfortunately too full, so took a couple of quick snaps and saved it for later.

Chocolate Croissant

The chocolate croissant was super flakey with thick chocolate and crushed nuts nom nom perfect with a cup of coffee.

Lemon Curd and Jam doughnut

The lemon curd doughnut was tangy and a slightly dense texture and the strawberry jam was also delectable.

Profiterole with cream cheese filling and freeze dried raspberry

Last but not least was this profiterole with I’m pretty sure cream cheese, raspberry ganache and freeze dried raspberry. Phew, that was a lot of food to get through in this post haha but the pleasure was all mine!

 

Daisy@Nevertoosweet and Mr Bao visited Rustica Sourdough as their guest and ID Collective

Merry Christmas!!! – Cookie Love + Giveaway *Winner Announced*

Merry Christmas everyone 🙂

My small little family (Mr Bao, Cupcake and myself) would like to wish all my Dearest Readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day 🙂 Hope you’ve been enjoying this wonderful festival of overeating, overspending but more importantly spending time with loved ones.

I know I am once again guilty for disappearing and not posting for a few weeks. I really apologise for that, however, I simply have not had the time do very much with work being so busy, working until early hours of the morning and also moving houses. We haven’t found our new place yet, so for the interim we’re back at my parents ~ But hopefully in the New Year we’ll find our new home! Wish me luck 🙂

Because I feel bad for not blogging for such a long time a have a gift for one special Reader 🙂 Keep reading and scroll down to the bottom for details how to enter this giveaway. Christmas a time for giving and also receiving. And although we tend to spoil ourselves during the holiday season, I think it’s important to remember to give to those who are less fortunate than ourselves. That is the reason why I was keen in trying and reviewing the new website ‘Where Your Heart Is’ website. This is a new website created by both Farm House Direct (a website which supports and helps sell local produce) and Good Spender (a website that sells products from Australian social enterprises).

Cookie Love from Teresa 🙂

The concept of Where Your Heart Is, is to give consumers the options of purchasing products which not only help local producers but also help give back to those in need. I think it’s a great idea and definitely makes Christmas shopping a lot easier! So save the link for next year! I was sent some beautifully packed baked goodies from Cookie Love a local artisan baker from Phillip Island in Victoria.

Teresa the founder and artisan baker of Cookie love wrote me one of the nicest Christmas cards I’ve ever received explaining how she came up with the idea of selling her gorgeous cookies and moreish panforte. Oh by the way, if you haven’t noticed that’s not my hands haha I recruited Miss D to come help me devour some cookies!

Christmas Cookies

I opened the first box and squealed to see a range of talented decorated Christmas cookies, I particularly like the Santa Claus because he has the most adorable little face. Miss D and both tried a little gift box cookie, as we wanted to save the bigger ones for later ~ I was particularly impressed with how soft the cookies remained and had a nice texture. These cookies would put a smile on anyone;s face!

Gingerbread Men

Underneath Christmas cookies were another layer of Gingerbread men! Once again delicately made with the cutest faces! I’ve made them once before… and lets say some of my gingerbread men we’re definitely not as happy or cheerful looking! They had the same soft texture as the butter cookies, however, these had a subtle ginger and cinnamon flavour through them.

Panforte Noire

We then moved onto the other two boxes which were Panforte. For those who are not familiar Teresa explained in the Christmas card that panforte are very traditional Italian fruitcake with lots of nuts. Some may mix chocolate through it to make it a ‘Nero’ a dark version of Panforte.

Panforte Bianco

The serving suggestion is to sprinkle with a little icing sugar, cut into slithers and enjoy with a cup of coffee or I would suggest champagne.

 

The panforte bianco has white chocolate mixed through, a variety of nuts and dried fruit. I’m not sure I’ve had panforte before so I’m probably not the best judge, but Miss D and I really enjoyed the chewy texture and crunchiness of the nuts. Compared to the dark chocolate (nero) panforte, we found that this wasn’t as sweet and tasted more fruity.

Panforte Nero

Moving onto the Panforte Nero which is exactly the same as the Bianco except it has dark chocolate (Lindt) mixed into it instead. It still has the roasted nuts, glace fruit and also honey for sweetness. I think the dark chocolate one looks more like a regular chocolate cake ~

Once again severing suggestion is icing sugar (which I forgot oops!) and cut into slithers which mine are also too big…what can I say I’m a greedy person 😀 I must say the texture is very similar for both panforte but my personal preference would be the nero as it is sweeter and has a more intense chocolate flavour. I would have loved to have this with a glass of latte, unfortunately my life is in boxes right now so I don’t even know where my coffee machine is hehe.

The panforte were quite large and could easily feed 6 to 8 people depending no the sizing of the pieces as it is quite filling. I’ve enjoyed all the products from Cookie Love and really enjoy supporting products made in Victoria. You can also order these Cookie Love products from this Farm House Direct link and be sure to check out the other products they have. It’s like a local farmers market online without having to wake up early the products are directly sent to you 🙂

Now thanks to Teresa (Cookie Love), Where Your Heart Is and Farmhouse Direct I have one set of this Christmas pack to giveaway. I’m sorry that it’s after Christmas but it’ll be more like a New Years present 🙂

To enter this giveaway
– Leave a comment and tell me have you tried Panforte before? Will you like the Bianco (White chocolate) or Nero (Dark chocolate) more?
– For more entries please ‘Like’ me on Facebook and Follow me on Twitter ~ If you’ve already done that please let me now! Thank you!
– Giveaway ends on the 4th January (Sunday) 
– You may reenter daily, one entry per day
– Winners will be chosen by me personally and announced on this blog and notified via email on the 5th January
– Open only to all Australian residents (Sorry International Readers!)

My little Reindeer (Cupcake) would like to wish everyone good luck in this giveaway and also have a safe and Happy New Year!

WINNER ANNOUNCED!!!

Congratulations CC you are the winner of this Cookie Love giveaway!

I will be emailing you and sending you the gift pack very shortly.

THANK YOU EVERYONE who entered!

Up In The Woods – Piggery Cafe

Piggery Cafe, Shannon Bennett’s newest venture up in the Dandenong Ranges. I visited in late September with Sarah (Sarah Cooks), Sandra and Ashley (I’m So Hungree) and have been meaning to write about the event for the longest time.

Sarah visited Piggery Cafe a couple months ago and has been raving about the cakes and also the $25 afternoon tea. So we promptly organised a girls day out and Sarah kindly offered to drive which is probably a great idea, as I am horrible with directions 😛

Piggery Cafe is only one part of the Burnham Beeches a historical mansion built in the 1930s and is now divided into different area such as the Burnham Bakery and also an Emu enclosure. There are also plans to open a Burnham Beeches hotel and steakhouse.

We chose one of the best afternoons to go, as it was lovely weather not too hot or cold and we managed to grab a nice table outside. Ashley and I took a walk inside the cafe and was immediately mesmerised by the table full of scones, mini tarts, cakes and other sweets! I was in dessert heaven!

Lemon Tart

I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off all the baked goodies! I wanted to try EVERYTHING the scones, lemon tart, mini chocolate cake! I’m practically had to drag myself out back to the table and waited patiently for the waiter to take our order. He explained to us that for $25 per person, includes a selection of savouries, sweet and unlimited flow of coffee, tea or hot chocolate.

Valrhona hot chocolate

They use Valrhona chocolate to make their hot chocolate here, so Ashley and I decided to get one each. It had great chocolate flavour, however, wasn’t the thick European type and was rather light and came with a little house-made marshmallow.

Savoury platter

Next up was a large platter of savoury items, it was a huge shock the amount of food on the board. From the left was a puff pastry filled with mushroom, smoked salmon, seeded sourdough with some addictive garlic spread and also a little quiche. Everything was great and I enjoyed it all but the mushroom pie was definitely a winner with the super flakey and buttery pastry!

Scones with jam and whipped cream

This was followed by these dainty scones half fruit (dried cranberries) and plain served with jam and whipped cream. I am determined to make my scones smaller at home next time they just look so much more refines and so damn cute when they’re small like this!

I slathered a very generous serving of whipped cream and I think it was apricot jam with a light citrus flavour which may have been orange. Scones had a good crust, but was still moist and fluffy inside thumbs up from me!

Chef’s selection of sweets

The food doesn’t stop coming, it was then a full plate of Chef’s selection of sweets! A wide range of cakes such as pistachio canele, almond cake, mini macarons, chocolate tart and macaroon. The cakes did not only look good they tasted fresh and nothing was dry or felt like it has been left out for a long time.

 

We then finished up with another round of coffee and tea. The afternoon tea here at Piggery Cafe is such a great value for money and I still can’t believe we got all this food for only $25! I guess it is a great way to attract patrons to visit in the afternoon which is usually quieter for the Dandenong Ranges when people are making their way home. I heard that Shannon Bennett wanted to create a space where he would like to visit with his kids on the weekend. He’s definitely done a great job to make Piggery Cafe very kid friendly and also pet friendly which is very important to me 🙂

Apple Danish and Lemon Merengue Tart $9

Before I left, I went back inside to grab an Apple Danish and also Lemon Merengue tart for Mr Bao as he got quite jealous he wasn’t invited to come hehe I can’t wait to take Mr Bao and Cupcake with me next time and I’m tempted to try the Burnham Beeches picnic basket next time 🙂