Metro has released their list of Auckland’s Top 50 Baked Goods, and two Parnell delicacies have earned a spot at the top!
You know what’s better than a good loaf of bread? A good loaf of bread that’s been sliced thickly, then the slabs doused in mānuka butter and roasted in a hot oven until their edges crackle and caramelise. The result is ‘honey toast’ and it’s a textural revelation, in which a brittle outer shell gives way to the squishy chew of the milk bread within. At Rhu, they sell these pre-cooked toasts by the slice, straight from the cabinet, but if you dine in, they’ll compose you a dish of toast with vanilla yoghurt and a cloak of seasonal fruit. The sweet breakfast of our dreams.
Even those lacking a sweet tooth will be charmed by the many single-portion sugary masterpieces that beam from behind the counter at this patisserie. These are baked sweets that lean into theatrics — compiled, piped, dressed and adorned. There’s a tart, for example, that rests on a Breton biscuit base, ringed by a lightly torched, fluted border of Italian meringue and filled with glossy mounds of lemon-lime curd. Another looks like a diminutive tower, constructed from varying layers of pomegranate and peach mousse cake, fig crémeux, springy almond sponge and meringue, crowned at the top with a knick-knack-like scattering of almonds, dried fruit and petals. The Black Forest choux cake is especially fetching: chocolate-filled choux orbs, piped with vanilla kirsch crème. Atop rests a scalloped wreath of chocolate surrounding a blob of cherry compôte. And at the highest point, a single rose petal, placed just so, balances jauntily — like a feather in its cap.
