A DAY AT MESSINA'S

"Cause I've got a golden ticket. I've got a golden chance to make my way and with a golden ticket it's a golden day."  

(Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971)

I know exactly how Charlie Bucket felt when he visited Willy Wonka's infamous chocolate factory, because I went to visit Australia's best makers of gelato yesterday. Although instead of a golden ticket it was an email confirmation... 

We gathered at the Surry Hills store on an early Saturday morning, where a shuttle bus was waiting to take us to their tiny factory in Rozelle, right next to Adriano Zumbo's. 

Donato Toce, the head chef and co-owner (pictured below) gave us a '101' on how to make gelato and shared some of his secrets and science behind their creations. Donato gave us a few demonstrations on how to make a Tiramisu gelato and a lychee sorbet which we got to taste.

Their factory is bursting at the seams, where they produce something like a tonne of gelato and up to 110 gelato cakes a day!  MIND BLOWN! Check out their To Make list on the whiteboard behind Donato - 180 litres x 9 flavours! With two of those being salted caramel, their most popular flavour. You can see why they are soon moving to a larger factory based in Rosebery, where they will be setting up a factory outlet! Woohoo!

All of their gelato originates from that tiny factory and is distributed throughout their numerous stores across Sydney and their store in Melbourne, where they are chilled and churned on site. We were told about the upcoming expansion of the Messina empire with future stores being developed in Miranda (NSW) and Coolangatta (QLD). 

Meanwhile we were fed a 5 course degustation menu all featuring gelati.
First off the bat was the Strawberry and Rhubarb fields forever, featuring caramelised rhubarb, compressed strawberries, baby basil, strawberry sorbet and dry caramel powder.



Second was the BHP, with a banana mousse, burnt honey gelato, fresh pear and pate sable. This was my favourite, the flavour combinations so subtle yet so complementary. 

Then we Oooh and Aaah'ed over the bowls of the Crunchies, which was so decadent and delicious and left us giggling looking at each other's gold-stained lips.

Another degustation delight was the Roll it and Fold it with a smooth mango sorbet, a refreshing apple and orange blossom creme leger, croissant crunch and croquant. 

And the final item on the menu was the Fra...what's going here... - which was probably the most interesting (but least visually enticing, if I have to be picky) of the lot - with a Pecan gelato, radish cream served on a Japanese sponge.

We watched on as the head pastry chef prepared his final touches for  the Willy Wonka inspired Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom gelato cake. I was mesmerised by the oozing red glaze being poured over the hemisphere of chocolate gelato. Isn't it just divine?!

If any of my nearest and dearest are reading this, let it be known that my birthday is coming up (cough cough HINT HINT HINT wink wink... (Hmm, subtle)

A cross section diagram  of Messina's amazing creation (Image from Gelato Messina)

TROPICAL GREEN : Lychee + Coconut Ice Cream

I'm sorry for my long unexplained absence. All the blame can be directed towards these two very distracting fluff balls. But I can't stay mad, just look at them!

A few weekends ago, my girlfriends (that I mentioned in my Salted Caramel post) joined me for a very sugar-filled brunch with the following menu:

Cheese & crackers with a delicious Kasundi relish (that my dad's neighbour made)

Pandan waffles served with a Lychee and Coconut Ice Cream and last but not least 

Momofoku's famous Crack Pie.

Thanks to the girls for my amazing waffle maker, which they gave me for my birthday. It has been getting a good work out! And special thanks to Julia for giving me the Crack Pie kit all the way from New York! I understand why that it's called that - it was so addictive! I loved the oat-cookie crust and the golden-syrupy, sticky, buttery filling.

The Pandan from the waffles, the Lychee and Coconut were a beautiful flavour combination and didn't seem over-power each other. I achieved a good balance of lychee and coconut flavours by using half cream and half coconut cream.

Unfortunately lychees are not in season so I used tinned lychees, which worked well and still gave a strong flavour.

LYCHEE & COCONUT ICE CREAM

Recipe adapted from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book's Pineapple Ice Cream

Makes about 1litre

Ingredients:

• 1 tin (approx. 500g) lychees, drained (Hint: why not save the juice for ice poles!)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup coconut cream

Method:

• Blend the lychees and salt until smooth.
• Combine the sugar and milk in a medium-sized saucepan and heat on low, stirring until the sugar dissolves and the milk starts to boil.
• Separate eggs and beat the milk mixture into the egg yolks.
• Pour mixture back into saucepan and heat on low, stirring constantly with heat-proof spatula until the custard thickens slightly.
• Remove from heat and pour the hot custard mixture through a strainer into a large bowl. 
• Allow mixture to cool slightly, then stir in the lychee puree and creams. 
• Refrigerate mixture until cold then use your ice cream maker on desired setting to process the mixture and churn.