Biga Artisan Bakery, East Lindfield

9 Hughes Pl, East Lindfield

It’s been a long time between vanilla slices, due to a combination of the COVID pandemic, and me being busy with new work. But today I took a short drive with Mrs Snot Block & Roll and Canine Snot Block & Roll for some afternoon tea to a new bakery that we hadn’t visited before.

Biga Artisan Bakery

I was wondering if they would have some vanilla slices, and lo! They did!

Biga Artisan Bakery

It’s an interesting bakery, with a small counter displaying just a few sweet treats, with a view behind to the working area with racks and machinery for baking bread. There didn’t appear to be a lot of bread available, probably because it was getting close to closing time. But they did have an interesting Lego version of the very shop I was standing in on the counter.

Biga Artisan Bakery

The 20-something Italian man behind the counter said that the Lego figures sitting on the benches outside the shop (which you can see for real in the first photo above) were likenesses of actual customers who frequented the bakery! It also appears that this bakery makes pizzas at some time, and they sell chilli oil. It definitely had a bit of an Italian air about it.

But I was here for the vanilla slice. I ordered one and took it out to eat on a bench in the deep shade of a large tree, since the day was over 30°C and very humid. I braved the sun to take a photo.

Vanilla slice, Biga Artisan Bakery

The slice is of a small to middling size, not the smallest I’ve had, but definitely not approaching the most generous. It has a single custard layer sandwiched between pastry layers that contain dozens of paper-thin sheets, the whole dusted with icing sugar. It looks pretty good, though it tapers to a thinner layer of custard at one end, which is apparently the edge of the slab that was sliced up to make the individual slices.

It’s easy to pick up and get a mouth around. However the first bite reveals that the pastry is very soft, not crunchy or crispy at all. I don’t know if it’s always like this, or if it has gone soggy from several hours sitting in the counter waiting to be served. Disappointing.

Vanilla slice, Biga Artisan Bakery

But that’s the only bad thing about it. Despite being soft, the pastry tastes good, with a nice brown caramelisation, and it’s light and separates into layers, rather than being stodgy. The custard is really good. It’s delicious, mouth-coatingly smooth and creamy, and has a decent hit of vanilla flavour, not too sweet. The whole thing is actually really enjoyable, despite the soft pastry.

I’m giving this a good score, and it would have easily made 9/10 if only that pastry had been crispy.

Vanilla slice: 7/10

Cornucopia Bakery, Naremburn

Shop 2/296-298 Willoughby Rd, Naremburn
facebook.com/CornucopiaBakerySydney

One of the earliest reviews I did on this blog was Delicia in Naremburn. As it’s within a (solid) walking distance from home, it was a bakery that I visited fairly frequently. Unfortunately, when I went there one time a year or two ago, I discovered that it had closed down. This left a fairly big hole in the local area, since the closure of St Malo a bit earlier wiped out the best bakery in the region.

The vacated Delicia premises remained empty for many months, until recently I took a walk that led me past… and I saw that it was now occupied. And by a new bakery!

Cornucopia Bakery, Naremburn

The fitout has changed, with the coffee machine on the left, and a single straight counter instead of the L-shaped one that Delicia had. They have a nicer looking selection of pies (although Delicia’s sausage rolls were good, their pies were average):

Continue reading Cornucopia Bakery, Naremburn

High Street Bakery, Northbridge

142 Sailors Bay Rd, Northbridge, New South Wales

Just a day after making a special expedition to Newtown for Miss Lilly’s, I had an appointment for my first COVID vaccination in the suburb of Northbridge. Since it was at lunch time, I took the opportunity to stroll around the Northbridge shops after my 15-minute safety rest, and found the High Street Bakery.

High Street Bakery

This is a bog standard suburban high street bakery, with the usual array of freshly baked loaves, a selection of small cakes and tarts and other sweets, and a pie warmer counter full of pies and sausage rolls.

Continue reading High Street Bakery, Northbridge

Miss Lilly’s, Newtown

571 King St, Newtown, NSW
misslillys.com.au

I received a recommendation recently via the subreddit /r/sydney saying that I had to try the sausage rolls at Miss Lilly’s in Newtown. I must admit that I haven’t tried any places in Newtown apart from The Pie Tin, because it’s so good there and I am in the area seldom enough that all I ever want to do is go back there. But, if someone is going to go out of their way to specifically recommend an establishment to me, I have to try it!

I made a special expedition over to Newtown just for this. I messed up a bit reading Google Maps and ended up at the wrong end of Newtown, wondering why I couldn’t find it. Consulting my phone, I realised my error, and walked along the entire eclectic university-student-filled shopping strip to the far end. This was fortunate as it helped build an appetite!

Miss Lilly's Bakery Cafe

I found Miss Lilly’s behind a humble shopfront on busy King Street. It bills itself as a “bakery cafe”, but there isn’t much room inside for the two tables, and there are two tables out on the footpath. The unassuming counter contains a small selection of slightly rustic, home-made style cakes, tarts, and slices. This is not a high-end patisserie – it looks like a typical small business cafe that someone just started to make a living. Unfortunately there isn’t a vanilla slice, but then that would have been a bonus since I really came here for the sausage rolls.

Continue reading Miss Lilly’s, Newtown

K’pané Artisan Bakery, Coffs Harbour

Jetty Village Shopping Centre, 361 Harbour Drive, Coffs Harbour NSW 2450
www.facebook.com/kpaneartisanbakery

Continuing my vacation trip, I got as far north as Coffs Harbour, on a day sojourn out of my accommodation in Port Macquarie. So I was here at lunch time, and keen to find something delicious to eat. A local pointed me towards the Jetty district of the city, where I found a small shopping centre, and K’pané Artisan Bakery. I neglected to take a photo of the exterior or interior, but it basically looked like a generic anonymous small shopping centre bakery, with nothing to distinguish it in any way.

Inside, the savoury menu featured some interesting pies, with a Penang pork tickling my fancy, as well as a pork and fennel sausage roll. There was alas no vanilla slice on offer, so I contented myself with the pie and sausage roll choice. I snuck a seat at a table belonging to the adjacent fish & chip shop and regarded my lunch.

Sausage roll: K'pané Artisan Bakery

The sausage roll (here displayed sitting atop the pie, as it was the only guaranteed clean surface elevated above the interior of the cardboard tray they came in) looks promising. It has a richly browned pastry crust, flaking into pieces as I manoeuvre it around for a photo, generously topped with poppy seeds. The pastry looks fairly thick, moist, and buttery. The end bits of the meat filling are crusty from baking, and display similarly generous amounts of shredded carrot. It looks enticing.

Continue reading K’pané Artisan Bakery, Coffs Harbour

Heatherbrae’s Pies, Heatherbrae

Corner of Pacific Hwy and Masonite Rd, Heatherbrae NSW 2324
www.heatherbraespies.com.au

Note: This is a new review of a place visited in 2015 by my co-contributor.

I recently took a long overdue holiday trip – not overseas because of COVID, but rather a road trip up the coast north of Sydney. Driving north along the highway, there are various towns and rest stops along the way. One of them, about 170 km (or two hours driving) north of Sydney, is renowned for its pies and sausage rolls. Although I’ve passed this way a few times, I’ve never stopped here before: Heatherbrae’s Pies.

Heatherbrae's Pies

The place is right beside the highway, accessed by a roundabout intersection. It’s hard to miss, as there are multiple roadside billboards announcing its presence, starting from about 10 km away. We arrived in the middle of the lunch rush, about 12:30, and it was clear that this place is very popular. We had trouble finding a spot in the car park, and then there was a queue of about 25 people in front of us to order pies.

Continue reading Heatherbrae’s Pies, Heatherbrae

Joel’s Home Made (guest review)

I discovered the Snot Block & Roll by clicking the link at the bottom of the Darths & Droids website. It said ‘food reviews’ and I thought, cool I like food. I then discovered that this was an entire blog dedicated to the review of two foods: vanilla slices and sausage rolls.

I loved this concept, and I vicariously sampled my way through what felt like half the bakeries in Australia. With every post my appreciation for these simple culinary delights grew, and apace grew the unfortunate realization I was probably never going to get the chance to try them in person. See, I live in the US of A, specifically inside the not-so-cosmopolitan state of Wisconsin. While I have seen pasty imitations of the vanilla slice crop up in the bakeries and buffets of the Fox Valley, I have never laid eyes on an honest-to-goodness sausage roll.

Faced with two alternatives, buy a plane ticket to Australia, or find a decent recipe; I opted for door number three and I created my own recipe for the Aussie Style Sausage Roll. (Credit where credit is due, I based my recipe off one I found in Bourke Street Bakery’s cookbook.)

Now for my self-aggrandizing review…

The roll looks amazing; lightly browned from the egg wash and speckled with whole fennel seeds to inform the customer just what kind of sausage roll they will be getting.

Home made sausage roll

The bottom of the roll is edged in a rich brown glaze where the meat drippings oozed out onto the pan during baking. (I am super glad I chose to bake these on the pizza stone.)

Continue reading Joel’s Home Made (guest review)

Vanilla, Lithgow

32 Main St, Lithgow, New South Wales

A few months ago, I took a winter weekend getaway driving trip with Mrs SB&R and Canine SB&R to the country town of Mudgee. Along the way, we stopped for a break and to stretch our legs at the intermediate town of Lithgow. Lithgow is a bit of a sleepy town and there wasn’t much open on this morning, but we located a cafe named Vanilla for a hot drink and a sweet treat. It also seemed to be operating as a florist.

Vanilla cafe, Lithgow

Stepping inside is like stepping from a freezer into a nice warm living room with a roaring fire in the fireplace. It’s warm and cosy, and populated with a few locals enjoying a respite from the harsh weather of the former coal mining town. The cake selection in here looks pretty good. And they had vanilla slices!

Continue reading Vanilla, Lithgow

San Antonio Sourdough, Balmain

349 Darling St, Balmain, New South Wales

On a fine spring day Mrs Snot Block & Roll suggested we go on an expedition across the water to the Sydney suburb of Balmain. A convenient way to get there is to catch a ferry, so we made our way over the cool green waters of Sydney Harbour to the relevant wharf and walked up the steep hill to the main street, where an array of shops and food outlets awaited. Here, in search of sustenance we found San Antonio Sourdough.

San Antonio Sourdough, Balmain

Taking a look at the counter displays inside, the sweet treats looked extremely tempting, and they also had some pies and sausage rolls. I got a sausage roll and, because they had no vanilla slices, I opted for a pecan tart for afterwards.

Continue reading San Antonio Sourdough, Balmain

Golden Bakehouse, South Turramurra

219C Kissing Point Road, South Turramurra, New South Wales
golden-bakehouse.business.site

It’s a warm late winter Sunday – the perfect opportunity to take Mrs and Canine Snot Block & Roll for a drive! Of course, I had to do some research to make sure there was a nice bakery awaiting at our destination. And for this trip I chose something that has been tantalising me for some time now. Whenever I do a Google search of Sydney for bakeries, popping up like a gleaming apparition with an astonishing 4.9 star average rating, is Golden Bakehouse at South Turramurra.

Golden Bakehouse, South Turramurra

It’s a strange thing. Despite the amazing Google rating, photos of the bakery look distinctly bland and average. This looks like your run-of-the-mill suburban bakery, dishing out good hot bread and banh mi rolls, but distinctly average patisserie goods. Something seems rotten in the State of Denmark here…

Continue reading Golden Bakehouse, South Turramurra