Macaron Day at Adriano Zumbo!

PS. You can check out all of my Macaron Day photos here. Yeah believe it or not but I only posted half of them.

Yesterday was Macaron day!

Each year on November 6th, Adriano Zumbo celebrates his birthday by declaring Macaron day at his Patisserie! I was disappointed to have missed it last year due to work, but when I heard that Nov 6th would fall on a weekend this year, I was ULTRA determined to make it rain/hail/shine. As it happened, that morning was pouring with rain… and I must admit that for a few moments, a little evil part of me was hoping it would thin out the crowds >:)

MACARONS = SRS BIZNISS

This year he had a cracking 65 different flavours for sale. Check out that list!

Everybody standing in the now customary queue outside the patisserie was handed an A4 order sheet of all the different flavours on sale. According to the list on the back of that sheet, the macarons were broken up into 5 categories:

1- Fruit

• Mandarin
• Citron
• Ruby grapefruit
• Raspberry
• Passionfruit
• Pineapple coconut
• Black-currant
• Yoghurt chilli tangerine
• Blueberry lavender
• Cucumber mint yoghurt
• Strawberry bubble-gum
• Rose

2- Chocolate

• Chocolate
• Chocolate banana
• Saltcellar milk chocolate caramel
• Chocolate salt & vinegar
• Chocolate smoked marshmallow
• Chocolate H2O
• Chocolate Zumbo
• Chocolate Mayo
• Chocolate PB&J
• Milo
• Mocha
• Lamington

3- East meets west

• Black garlic
• Black sesame
• Lychee
• Pandan
• Liquorice
• Sichuan pepper
• Cherry adzuki bean
• Lamington
• Finger bun
• Vegemite sourdough
• Coconut
• Pancake & maple syrup

4- Nuts and more

• Coffee
• Almond
• Pistachio
• Hazelnut
• Pecan Danish
• Pinenut gianduja
• Sticky date pudding
• Salted butter popcorn
• Chestnut passionfruit
• Rice pudding
• Salted butter caramel
• Vanilla

5- A Walk on the Wild Side

• Blue Cheese
• Kalamata Olive & Candy
• Toothpaste
• Redskin
• Beer & Nuts
• Cereal Box
• Negroni
• Lollipops
• Cookie Dough
• Spelt
• Burnt Toast
• Salt & Vinegar!

Too awesome. Also… thank goodness for OCR!!

Along with my partners in crime, Zay and Thewi – we managed to purchase 46 macarons! A few flavours were double-ups, but we tried to get as many flavours (and as many of the weird flavours) as possible! He’s really the Bertie Bott’s of Macarons.

Fairy Bread and Cookie Dough were the two flavours that weren’t on the printed list! How pretty is Fairy Bread though?

All hands on deck for Macaron Day!

I know I’ve said it before, but how awesome are the staff at Zumbo’s??? It can’t have been an easy day for them – with the crowds, and enormous amounts of fragile product to contend with. But like every other time I’ve visited the patisserie – they were so patient, warm and friendly, even giving us tips on what the good macarons were (apparently Cookie Dough is a good one :D).

There was even a stedicam operator in the tiny shop – Macaron documentary perhaps??

The goods

Near the end of the counter, we saw this platter of deep fried macarons! Fish and Chips of course! Love the presentation

After purchasing our macarons, we headed over to Gladstone park for some macaron picnicking. The grass was still soggy from this morning’s deluge, so we parked ourselves right in the middle of the basketball court. Felt like we were back in primary school recess – albeit with a much better lunch than usual.

Our haul!

Top row: Chilli Tangerine Yoghurt, Sichuan Pepper, Salted Milk Chocolate Caramel, Redskin

Bottom rows: Black Sesame, Blueberry Lavender, Cereal Box, Choc Mayo, Choc Smoked Marshmallow, Fingerbun, Pandan, Pear White Chocolate Macadamia

Not even going to try name all these

THE VERDICT

• Fish & Chips: DEEP FRIED DELICIOUSNESS. Tasted like a fritter! Could eat a basket of them.
• Redskins: YUM! Then again, Redskins are one of my fave lollies so I’m partial. They tasted exactly like them!
• Salted Milk Choc Caramel: Could eat a whole bucket of these
• Sichuan Pepper: Interesting mix of chocolate and Sichuan spice. Very different
• Hamburger: So cute! Had a piece of cheese and beetroot inside! A bit soggy by the time we got to it though
• Blue Cheese: very…. cheesy. A bit adventurous for me. Only had 1 bite
• Cherry Adzuki Bean: Tasted very much like adzuki – couldn’t taste the cherry though
• Choc Water: Such a cute shape – just like a blue and white waterdrop! Yum. Hard to go wrong with chocolate though
• Lollipops: One of my faves of the day! Bright blue! On a stick! Tasted like candy! Filled with popping candy!
• Fairybread: Very sweet looking, and tasting
• Salt & Vinegar: VERY balsamic-y. Not very salty though.
• Vegemite Sourdough: DELICIOUS. So vegemitey, but with a sweet taste
• Burnt Toast: Sooo apprehensive about this one, but it ended up being delicious! Tasted like crunchy toast! And with a square of butter in the middle haha.
• Cereal Box: Cornflakes in the middle! Quite fun, but not as good as the others
• Choc Zumbo: Still don’t know what the crunchy bits on the outside were, but it did taste chocolatey.
• Black Sesame: After eating all of the wacky flavours, this one seemed quite bland! A bit buttery, wanted it to taste more nutty.

Breaking apart the fish & chips macaron! There was an extensive debate as to what was inside. Zay thought actual fish. I thought banana.

Hamburger! With a tiny slice of cheese! Cute colours! Though I’m still confused as to why the bun was coloured green!

Lollipops, one of the best of the day

The little pat of butter inside Burnt Toast! so cute

All in the name of research

I still have quite a few left. SUGAR OVERDOSE. It might take me a year to recover….!

Did anyone else go?? What were your faves?