Gumnut Patisserie, the place where you can many assorted kinds of pastries and desserts which is at the heart of Berrima township , Southern Highlands. Gumnut Pattiserie has few different location around the highlands. My husband did some research of good pastries in Berrima and he found this Gumnut Patisserie was on the desirable list. It was a 90 minutes drive from Sydney. After few minutes of searching, we came by this place.
Outside of the bakery, I saw this most important road side signage that is good enough to attract customer. I had to take this picture because I am excited that I am going to try their desserts soon. I love desserts despite of being lactose intolerant together with my husband. We are willing to take our own risk, included spending more money to take some lactose enzymes.
It was a good Sunday, rained for awhile and turned sunny again. There was no line for us to wait for too long on this particular day, yahoo we thought we were lucky.
When we first stepped into the bakery, my eyes gazed around all the desserts and gateaux,The combinations of coffee and pastry, oh my goodness, we must come back for dessert right after my lunch at Zen Oasis restaurant. I must keep my stomach for second round of food, we quickly grabbed a cup of Long Black and left.
Mobile phone shot
Mobile shot
Mobile phone shot
Mobile phone shot
Mobile phone shot
Around 2pm, we came back for seconds from a decent lunch and kept some empty space for trying some pastries here. Cannot wait as the aroma from the coffee and pastries were killing me softly.
So these are what we ordered. We ordered few desserts and planned to get some home initially for supper. Unfortunately, husband immediately shook his head in disapproval after having tasted their well known signature vanilla slice which has won an award, and the caramel tart. Its was my turn to taste and I have no doubt to agree with him. We were struggling to finish it. The flavours in our opinion is an acquired taste.
If we were given another chance to travel here, I would want to try other pastries or desserts apart from the Vanilla slice which was merely suggested by the staff. I am super critical of choosing a good slice of dessert as the effort and time we traveled for , just to try the desserts, I have some high expectations especially with the good reviews and the title Gumnut has received over the years.
I wish the staffs were enthusiastic enough to give me or other customers some suggestions of their pastries, especially when we asked for the second slice. The girl was little less passionate of what she sells, perhaps? Maybe ask us what would we like for our palette and guide us to some good desserts, perhaps? The varieties are excellent.
I would love to give them some insight on how to identify what kind of customers are coming for just the desserts:
When someone who came back to the shop for the second time and who glanced through all the desserts inside and out, occupied and engaged herself / himself in snapping pictures of the pastries and the front door sign, snapping pictures of all the ordered desserts for a good 15 minutes before eating it and last but not least just concentrate in tasting the desserts and components without coming here for just a coffee talk, I think all tell tale signs are that is enough to show that this customer cares of her/his dessert. Two words: dessert lover.
I cannot judge the pastry by just two desserts and one mocha to define the final conclusion, that is unacceptable, do you agree?After the dessert experience in Gumnut, not knowing which one to choose(So many choices, I am sure there must be one or two I would love) , it might not be practical or enjoyable experience to travel back here to get the dessert due to the time it took to get here.
People who travel to Berrima here are majorly tourists. There are not more than even twenty shops around here. I assumed customers are mainly tourist who had to travel in the first place to get here? I hope Gumnut could give me another reason to try their desserts once again to proof that their desserts are exquisite. I don’t like to be critical, I want to enjoy the desserts, because I am a dessert lover.
Soy Mocha:
Reasonable taste however towards slight bitter after note. Perhaps they slight burnt the coffee, this is what my husband suspected who is considered a coffee expert compared to me.
Caramel Tart: $ 4++
Comment:
From the taste of the caramel, I can confidently tell you, they are using large amount of sweetened milk and some melted white chocolate. The 5mm thickness of the tart skin combined with the 90% of the caramel somehow does not balance out the taste. All I can taste is sweet , sweet and overly sweet. My husband has been brought up with heavy cheese and milk flavour but he just couldn’t take half of the tart without the soy mocha to swallow it down.
Secondly, I personally do not get the idea of decorating strawberry sauce on both caramel and vanilla slice serving plates, please kindly enlighten me? I understand that Vanilla slice could go well with the strawberry sauce but definitely not to caramel tart. I personally think that the sauce is unnecessary. The taste and the amount are not relevant to the heavy sweetness of caramel. I wondered: do they serve all pastries with the strawberry sauce? I rather prefer some ice cream or whipped cream to cut down the sweetness of caramel . We both shared the tart and ended up having no choice but to disrespect the hard work by the chef, unfortunately we both had to leave aside 1/4 of the caramel tart on the serving plate. Indeed, we struggled to finish the artwork although we were born without wasting food as you all should know.
Personal Suggestion(actually 2 person):
- Please make portion to a small mini tart if you insist in having this caramel tart on the shelf. The caramel flavour has killed the entire tart. It is as though I am drinking a canned of sweetened milk instead. Forgive me being so straightforward.
- I respect the Chef job to create something nice, but I would prefer either top it up with some whipped cream or reduce the tart size to at least 1/3 of original size which would greatly appreciated.
- Perhaps chef can turn this caramel into salted caramel instead, to prevent any portion size reduction. I could understand some customers prefer to pay based on value.
- Please kindly remove the strawberry sauce, or on other desserts too. Not all desserts are happily married to the sauce. Please kindly consider this key point too.
- Passionate staffs to give some assistance in helping first experience customers like us in picking some desserts apart from Vanilla slice?
This is known as the “famous” Vanilla Slice that won many awards, made with layers of butter puff pastry with Crème Patissiere between the layers and topped with vanilla fondant, decorated with chocolate ganache.
When I first entered the store, requesting politely from staff what would they suggest me to try on for our first visit. She had no doubt and answered: Vanilla slice. So we had a slice.
INDIVIDUAL Vanilla Slice $4.60
Comment:
The good part is the buttery puff pastry , unlike other bakery cafe that serve their vanilla slice which is always soggy due to the cream patisserie sandwiched in between every puff pastry layers.Not only that, those unknown bakery shops love to use poor quality of butter to make the puff pastry which goes soggy easily. So bravo to “Gumnut patisserie ” of the buttery and multiple layers of flakiness of puff pastry that never let us down.
The vanilla fondant is seemingly necessary component to tie up the entire vanilla slice due to the fact that the cream patissiere tasted towards rather on the plain side,it is screaming for considerable addition of sweetness. From what I tasted: The 90% of the sweetness comes from the vanilla fondant and 10% would be from the cream patissiere. When I tried the 3 components together in one mouthful, somehow to me, it is does not bind well together as though they were not belonging together in a family anymore.
Personal Suggestions:
- Would be greatly appreciated if they can increase the amount of sweetness to the cream patissiere,
- Reduce the the amount of the vanilla fondant,
- Keep the vanilla taste and the buttery goodness of puff pastry,
- With all these small adjustments, I would award them a pretty damn good “Vanilla Slice” of the year.
Placing a slice of dessert for an unusual spot for a picture taking is another sign shows that I am a dessert lover.
You will see a pretty adorable bookstore just right beside Gumnut Patisserie.
[Article above is based on personal experience and opinions which has no intention against anyone’s business associates as every individual has their own preference on how their dessert should taste like. ]
For more information of BERRIMA SHOP:
Hume Highway
BERRIMA NSW 2577
Telephone: 48772 177
Hello Sweet Dessert 