I’ve spent the weekend in Brisbane visiting Miss13, Miss17 and my parents. We have some activities planned and I’ve taken Monday as recreation leave so we could fit things in. I’m writing a series of short posts about the food we ate on this visit.
It’s Sunday morning and we’re on our way to the Gold Coast for the day. Part of the journey is breakfast at Yatala Pies which is a bit of an institution in God’s own (i.e., Queensland).
Miss13 and Miss17 had no qualms about pastry for breakfast. We were on the road at 7.30 and by the time we got there a little after 8 we were all pretty hungry.
Miss13 asked for a caramel tart sans cream, Miss17 went for a vanilla slice as did I. I also asked for a jam and cream doughnut that we could share.
There were no vanilla slices on the counter when we arrived and when the lady went out the back to investigate if they had any my heart sank when she emerged with two slices that looked like they’d been in the cold room.
Long time readers will know of my devotion to the good old Aussie vanilla slice which Mexicans (aka Victorians) call snot blocks. If you want to know what I reckon makes a good vanilla slice here is my review. It’s become such a thing I regularly have conversations with a couple of very senior colleagues at work. So much so we send text messages to one another along with photographs when we come across a new vanilla slice we haven’t tried.
This vanilla slice had multiple problems. The icing was too thick and the pastry was too stiff. The custard while tasting nice was also a little gelatinous.
The jam and cream doughnut on the other hand was delicious. It was light and fluffy and not at all doughy. The cream wasn’t too sweet and the jam wasn’t either. Miss17 thought a little more jam would have made it just a little better.
Please don’t get me wrong, Yatala Pies make great hot pies. I’ve enjoyed them over the years and they’re consistently good. My advice though is steer clear of the vanilla slice and have a jam and cream doughnut instead.
Over a five day road trip I enjoyed 5 types of vanilla slice
This post is dedicated to one of my favourite pastries, i.e., the vanilla slice. I’m not talking about the pooncy Mille-feulle that the French make. I’m talking about a good old fashioned vanilla slice that you find at school fetes, an Australian classic. An Australian legend.
This post is not about the story of the vanilla slice and its iconic position in modern Australian history. This is my opinion (only) on what makes a good vanilla slice.
As I was driving home yesterday, I was chatting with Mum on the telephone. I was describing my holiday experience and the vanilla slices I’d eaten. We discussed how we remember vanilla slices from the time I was a young boy when you get them at the school tuck shop and at school fetes.
In my mind a good vanilla slice isn’t too tall, that is, the layer of custard only needs to be a centimetre or so not the two or more centimetres you see in most shops. The custard should also be rich and creamy without too much gelatin. I’ve had some vanilla slices which I’m sure I could bounce off a wall because the custard was like a squash ball. You don’t want your tongue to slide off the custard, the custard needs to be soft enough that you can manipulate the custard with the tip of your tongue. You want to be able to savour and taste the custard, it needs to coat your tongue so that all the amazing flavour of the custard can give you that amazing rush. The pastry should be thin but not so flaky and hard that when you bite into it it cracks and creates a flaky snow storm. I don’t mean soggy, soggy pastry isn’t good, but soft to firm. This goes for both the bottom layer of pastry and the top layer. The icing is contentious. I’m a fan of both the passionfruit and pink icing variations. I’m not a fan of the white icing with chocolate swirls. That sort of fanciness has no place in vanilla slice making (IMHO). The icing needs to be subtle, sweet, but not sickly sweet. It also needs to be thin, not thick, thick makes it too sweet. The icing also needs to be soft so that when you bite into the slice your maxillary incisors can slice cleanly through the icing into the custard and the mandibular incisors cleanly slice through the pastry and into the custard. You don’t want to make a mess. You don’t want your fingers to be too sticky. You want to be able to eat a vanilla slice with your hands or if you’re with polite company with a fork. Modern day vanilla slices often have icing that is too thick or too ‘tempered’ so it snaps or embeds into the custard as you push down with a fork.
In terms of shape and size, rectangles or squares are fine but not too big. Everything in moderation people, you want to have that feeling of wanting more but knowing you’ve had enough with just one slice.
Okay here’s the lineup of vanilla slices from my recent holiday.
Holbrook Bakery (central)
This was the first vanilla slice of the trip. It’s from the (central) Holbrook Bakery (there are two, viz., central and southern). You can see the icing has been dusted with icing sugar. I believe this is superfluous. If the pastry is too stiff when you bite in or when you use a fork the icing sugar goes all over the place, not a good thing if you’re wearing a black shirt. I made the mistake of going for the French vanilla slice which has a layer of cream. The cream was good but because the pastry was too hard you basically squirt the cream all over the place making for a messy experience. If I was eating this over my kitchen sink or in the bath tub with my hands that would be fine but not in a bakery or cafe.
Henri’s Wodonga Bakery
Henri’s is a big bakery in the Coles car park in Wodonga. There’s a lot of tables and chairs and a great selection of cakes. The pastry and custard in this vanilla slice was good. The icing though was too thick. Way too thick. I lifted it off when I couldn’t get my fork through it. I ate the icing separately. I really enjoyed the custard and the pastry but the icing was too sweet.
Hides Bakery Benalla
So this was the only passionfruit icing I came across on my trip. It was really nice and the flavour was subtle. The tang of the passionfruit was there and contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the soft and light icing. The custard though was a little too gelatinous.
Kemp’s Bakery in Kilmore
Before I describe the vanilla slice let me say this is a really good bakery/cafe. The staff are friendly and helpful. The tables and chairs are great and not too close together. The best part of the bakery is the toilets. Best, cleanest well lit toilets I came across on this trip. I’d happily read a newspaper in the toilets in Kemp’s Bakery in Kilmore. Now the icing on this vanilla is this pink. Can it be too pink? Who knows! What I found odd was the strawberry flavour in the icing. The custard was set a little too high and was a bit gelatinous too.
Beechworth Bakery in Beechworth
I didn’t have Beechworth in my original itinerary. That said, quite a few friends told me they thought the Beechworth vanilla slice was the best. One friend in particular who I know to be a connoisseur of vanilla slices thought Beechworth was the place to go. Given I was driving at a leisurely pace on this holiday, I took a detour from Wangaratta to Beechworth and then headed on to Holbrook. The Beechworth Bakery is impressive and if you check out yesterday’s post you’ll see why in the display case photograph I posted. This vanilla slice was certainly good. The custard wasn’t too high. The custard wasn’t too gelatinous. The pastry was softish. The icing though was thick. That said, the Beechworth Bakery Vanilla slice was probably the best of this trip and I’m glad I took some time out to visit. The better reason though to visit Beechworth Bakery is their beesting. OMG the best beesting ever. Custard in light sweet pastry. It was amazing.
So have these vanilla slices been better than my all time favourite of recent years? NO The vanilla slice from the Gumnut Patisserie at Bowral (or Mittagong or Moss Vale) still ranks as the best even though it does have pooncy white icing with chocolate swirls.
The last word on my vanilla slice journey comes from my Mum. “Gary you know the only way you’re going to enjoy the perfect vanilla slice is if you practice and make it yourself”.
[googlemaps-photo-gallery]
I also want to mention that one of the enjoyable parts of my driving holiday wasn’t just listening to podcasts on Star Trek and photography, but the book The Crossroad by Mark Donaldson, VC. It’s an open account of what made the man. I’d recommend the book to anyone interested in defending human rights, being Australian and loving life.
So no more bakeries for me (for a week or two anyway) Do you have a vanilla slice story you’d like to share? Please leave a comment.
So today ends the driving portion of my short holiday. I woke up in Wangaratta after another crapulent sleep and after not seeing the kettle yesterday when I checked in found the kettle and some instant coffee. After a shower I packed up and set off for Beechworth. I had been told by a number of friends that the best bakery to visit in Victoria is the Beechworth Bakery just east of Wangaratta. I thought a detour was in order.
My jeans are already tight and what is a few more calories going to change?
I plan to write a specific post about vanilla slices on this trip so I won’t go into detail about what I think makes for a good vanilla slice. Suffice to say, the vanilla slice from the Beechworth bakery is good but not amazingly good and is still not a patch on the Gumnut Patisserie in Bowral. The pink icing was subtle with little or no flavour besides the sweetness of the sugar. The custard had a very nice flavour and the custard wasn’t too gelatinous, and was probably the best custard of this trip.
This bakery though has another pastry that I adore and again it’s a custard filled pastry. Can you guess what I’m buzzing at? That’s a clue there too.
Take a look at this photograph and you’ll know what I mean.
So my next stop was in Holbrook, I’d already tried the central Holbrook Bakery so today I went to the southern one and enjoyed a cottage pie. So far on this trip every bakery I’ve been in hasn’t had a potato pie, either they had sold out or they just didn’t have them.
I finally got into Canberra sometime after 3 pm and after grocery shopping went for a walk to move my legs after sitting on my big fat arse all day
It’s Monday and you know what that means right?
Curried salmon with peas, corn and fried onions on brown rice.
With the gymnastics competition over and Miss13 flying home to Brisbane I had to make my way back to Canberra. It was raining and cold when I left Geelong and it remained gloomy the whole drive to Wangaratta.
My aim today was to take a leisurely drive through Kilmore, Euroa and Benalla stopping at each place and trying a bakery.
This is the vanilla slice at Kemp’s Bakery in Kilmore. The bakery is really good. The range of products is large and for travellers the toilets are remarkable. They are so clean. The coffee is also pretty good. Unfortunately the icing on the vanilla slice was very thick making it difficult to break through with a fork. The icing though did have a discernable strawberry flavour. The custard had a nice flavour but it was too gelatinous. I’d happily eat vanilla slices there but they weren’t the best I’ve ever had.
I drove through to Euroa while listening to Trek.fm podcasts and stopped at Burkes Bakery. The pies they had on selection were the usual ones you’d see in a country bakery but the bloke serving behind the counter suggested the steak with bacon and egg pie. It was very good and served at perfect eating temperature. It wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t cold. The filling was thick enough that it didn’t fall out after the first bite. The pastry was light but not so flaky that I got it all over me. I’d say it was a perfect casing for what was a very good filling.
Even though I’d been making good progress I was wanting to go to Hides Bakery in Benalla again for a coffee. I was feeling very tired after another poor sleep and thought a stop for some caffiene would help. When I arrived I noticed they’d sold out of vanilla slices but I did see a nice looking coconut and jam slice. I do like a coconut and jam slice.
I’m spending the night at the Millers Cottage motor inn in Wangaratta. It’s a budget motel and my guess it has been in operation since at least the 1970s. The decor is 1970s.
I was thinking of finding a restaurant but I felt too tired so I went and found a fast food joint and bought a burger. Yep, Hungry Jacks whopper and onion rings.
So how did you spend your Sunday? I hope it was a good one. Bye for now.
It’s day two of my holiday adventure. Today I drove from Wangaratta to Geelong. I was expecting it to take about four hours but I ended up spending more than three hours in bumper to bumper traffic because of two major accidents on the Princess Highway just past the Melbourne airport.
I woke up at the Parkview Motor Inn in Wangaratta with welts on my skin because there were biting midges in the bed. I didn’t sleep well and missed having my CPAP machine. After two instant coffees and a shower I felt well enough to check out and head for Benalla. I found Hides Bakery and enjoyed a passion fruit iced vanilla slice and coffee for breakfast.
After Benalla I made my way to Wallan expecting the Top of the Town Bakery to be a suitable place to find lunch.
[googlemaps-photo-gallery]
What I found was a relatively small bakery with a couple of old warped tables. I bought a beef, bacon and cheese pie and found a park to eat lunch.
It was still midday when I set off and I thought I’d make good progress getting to Geelong with the thought I might have an afternoon at the Geelong Arena. In the end I sat in traffic for more than three hours.
On getting to Geelong I checked in and tried to relax a little.
Later in the afternoon I went for a walk to Corio Wharf and then found a Thai restaurant to have dinner.
I asked for the salt and chilli squid plus a BBQ pork laksa. Both were hot like fire from the chilli. The laksa was very spicy and the coconut milk wasn’t as creamy as I’ve had elsewhere. Overall both were really nice dishes.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here:
Cookie Policy