The Fudgy Chocolate Cookie comes two to an order. That one detail explains how cookies work at our patisserie better than any description could: they are built with a second half already accounted for. Three of them sit on the menu, they reach you in three completely different ways, and only one involves sitting down with a spoon.
Three cookies, three different jobs
- S'more Cookie, $18 — a warm double chocolate cookie with house-made marshmallow, vanilla ice cream and hot chocolate sauce, made to order and plated at the counter.
- Banoffee Cookie Tart — a chocolate chip cookie baked into a crisp tart shell, filled with thick dulce de leche and topped with caramelised banana, straight from the cabinet.
- Brownie Bites — bite-sized pieces of our flourless brownie, bagged to take away, and about as fudgy as chocolate gets without a spoon.
None of the three starts from a pre-mix, which is a standing rule in this kitchen. With a cookie or a brownie, that shows up in the texture more than anywhere else, because a fudgy centre is a question of how far the batter is taken and when the tray comes out, not what was in the packet.
The S'more Cookie is a dessert, not a snack
The S'more Cookie sits on the made-to-order dessert menu rather than in the cabinet, so it is assembled when you ask for it. Allow about ten minutes in store. The cookie arrives warm, the marshmallow is made here and toasted rather than spooned from a jar, and the hot chocolate sauce goes on last so it runs down into the ice cream in front of you. The kitchen is open-plan, so those ten minutes are not dead time. The same menu carries the Matilda Chocolate, one of our chocolate desserts: warm dark chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, dark chocolate crumble and hot chocolate sauce poured at the counter.
What the Banoffee Cookie Tart borrows
The Banoffee Cookie Tart bakes a chocolate chip cookie into a tart shell, so the base stays crisp and buttery instead of softening under what sits on top. Inside is a thick layer of dulce de leche, which is condensed milk cooked slowly until it turns to caramel, and over that go pieces of caramelised banana. It is a cabinet item, so there is no wait and nothing to order ahead. The same pairing turns up in the Banoffee Cookie Thickshake, and we have written more about the banoffee family elsewhere.
Two cookies, and a reason to bring someone
The Fudgy Chocolate Cookie is the cheapest thing here and the easiest to split, because you are handed two. The better version is to come with a friend and order one of each across the table: the warm plated one, the cabinet tart and the bagged pair, three textures of the same idea between two of you, with an argument at the end about which won. There is no setup and nothing to clean up. If you would rather share one thing than three, the Signature Chocolate Fondue is built for more than one person from the start, a warm Belgian chocolate dip with house-toasted marshmallow, a mini croissant, cookies, brownie bites and fresh fruit. Tables here move to seat four to eight, and the room is dog friendly.
What to drink, and what to take with you
Chocolate on chocolate works better than it sounds. The hot chocolate and iced chocolate both come two ways: New York style, with a toasted marshmallow rim, or Paris style, with whipped cream on the side. The Dark Chocolate Thickshake is one of four thickshakes and is made with no added gluten, though our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all of our different recipes, so traces may occur and nothing is guaranteed safe for severe coeliac disease. For the walk home, Brownie Bites are sold by the bag, flourless and dense, and the rest of the packaged sweet treats need no notice either.
Ordering and visiting
Cabinet and packaged items need no notice at all, so the Banoffee Cookie Tart and the Fudgy Chocolate Cookie are a straight walk-in. The S'more Cookie and the rest of the made-to-order menu take about ten minutes on the day, in store. Anything ordered online for collection needs two days as a rule, and the checkout date picker only offers dates the kitchen can meet. Everything is collected in person from our patisserie inside The Welder on Welles Street in the central city, because we do not deliver. We are open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 3pm Saturday.
