Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Passiontree Velvet for Macarons

Passiontree Velvet
http://www.passiontreevelvet.com/


When I was a care-free uni student, I lived between the CBD (where I studied) and Westfield Carindale. I was constantly exposed to clothing and food stores and daiily window shopping was the norm. Now, on my rare days off I can't be bothered to drag my tired bum to either catch public transport or drive and fight for parking at a shopping precinct. Shopping centres are a new novelty to me.


The recent times I've made it to Indooroopilly and Carindale shopping centres, I've been like a kid in a candy store; mouth open and glaze-eyed trawling past all the shiny renovations. To be fair, I do still go to Carindale every now and again because my parents live there but enough time had passed since my last visit that a whole new dessert store popped up.



I was wandering through Carindale shopping centre and literally stopped short in front of Passiontree Velvet (not to be confused with Passion Tree). Some of you will know I was in Melbourne not too long ago and one of my minor disappointments was not tasting any macarons. Marc doesn't 'get' macarons and his lack of enthusiasm meant I didn't get to buy any either. Seeing the gorgeous display of pastel beauties at PassiontreeVelvet seemed like a sign from the gods that I was meant to eat macarons this month after all.

I kept my order simple because macarons seemed to be the main affair here and macaron was all I wanted. I noticed there was an emphasis on tea in the menu and I guess that Passiontree Velvet is after a Laduree-type environment with its macaron tea shop charm.

My trio of macarons

My picks for the day were cookies and cream, salted caramel and earl grey tea.

Cookies and cream macaron

The cookies and cream was very delicious with a thick and luxurious cookie crumble icing. Whilst cookies and cream can be a sort of juvenile flavour, this version managed to maintain the refined nature of a macaron.

Earl grey macaron

I chose earl grey because I was curious as to how the flavour of the tea would translate onto a dessert. I guess the macaron tasted alright but I couldn't detect any hint of tea at all. It was much too subtle for me. This ended up being the least impressive of my three.

Salted caramel macaron

My favourite would have to be the salted caramel flavour. I do think that salted caramel is abused nowadays with many commercial products claiming to be salted caramel but in effect just being a caramel syrup as sugary as its ever been. This salted caramel macaron had pops of actual rock salt. The taste combination of intense saltiness and sweet sticky caramel exploded in my mouth and was frankly, just amazing.

I'm really glad that there is a macaron vendor accessible to me. I know that perhaps macarons aren't as trendy as they once were but for me, it's always been about the taste. They are so yummy! The macarons from Passiontree were as good as any I've tried. They don't come in any crazy outlandish flavours but if you, like I, are happy with the generics, then these will be sure to please.
Passiontree Velvet on Urbanspoon

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