2011 Christmas Hampers Now Ready To Order

We are now taking pre orders of our fantastic Burch & Purchese hampers for this coming Christmas. The collection of sweet treats make this a truly memorable gift for that special someone! We have two tiers of hamper on offer this year and each one will have a signed certificate from Darren Purchese explaining the contents and a uses for some of the products.

ORDER YOUR CHRISTMAS HAMPERS NOW

email - info@burchandpurchese.com 

phone - 03 9827 7060

or in store - 647 Chapel Street, South Yarra, 3141

AVAILABLE FOR COLLECTION FROM THE 1st OF DECEMBER 2011

Our trademark B&P gift boxes are crammed packed full of our most delicious and decadent creations

THE SWEET STUDIO CHRISTMAS GIFT BOX $120

CITY HONEY HONEYCOMB – 100 g

Try our wonderful homemade honeycomb made with honey from our very own roof top bees.

BURCH & PURCHESE GOLD BULLION BARS – PKT OF 6

Our famous salted caramel encased in dark Spanish chocolate finished with golden lustre

PISTACHIO, LEMON & WHITE CHOCOLATE PERSUADERS – PKT OF 12

The name says it all…this is a deliciously persuasive biscuit.

STRAWBERRY, MINT & WHITE CHOCOLATE RUBBLE – 150 g

Freeze dried strawberry & mint in Spanish white chocolate pieces….Christmas is here.

CANDIED SEEDS, NUTS & COCOA NIBS – 180 g

Delicious to eat on their own…..outstanding with fruit and yoghurt….’off the charts’ in salads

RASPBERRY & DRAMBUIE JAM – 250 g

Last summers raspberries with a generous tipple of Drambuie make the perfect holiday spread

CHRISTMAS PUDDING – 500 g

Our secret recipe pudding is going to turn heads this year

SALTED CARAMEL 250 g

One little jar – one hundred uses! Heat gently for a spectacular caramel sauce, roll through ice cream for an instant sundae or smear between layers of your favorite chocolate cake

CANDIED GINGER & DARK CHOCOLATE BAR – 100 g

Generous chunks of crystallised ginger

THE SWEET STUDIO EXTRAVAGAZA $160

CITY HONEY HONEYCOMB – 100 g

Try our wonderful homemade honeycomb made with honey from our very own roof top bees.

BURCH & PURCHESE GOLD BULLION BARS – PKT OF 6

Our famous salted caramel encased in dark Spanish chocolate finished with golden lustre

PISTACHIO, LEMON & WHITE CHOCOLATE PERSUADERS – PKT OF 12

The name says it all…this is a deliciously persuasive biscuit.

STRAWBERRY, MINT & WHITE CHOCOLATE RUBBLE – 150 g

Freeze dried strawberry & mint in Spanish white chocolate pieces….Christmas is here.

CANDIED SEEDS, NUTS & COCOA NIBS – 180 g

Delicious to eat on their own…..outstanding with fruit and yoghurt….’off the charts’ in salads

POPCORN & HONEYCOMB RUBBLE – 15O g

This scrumptious concoction is bound in milk chocolate…BEWARE it’s wickedly addictive.

RASPBERRY & DRAMBUIE JAM – 250 g

Last summers raspberries with a generous tipple of Drambuie make the perfect holiday spread

SWEET STUDIO BRITTLE – 175 g

Generous slabs od toffee & nut brittle dipped I dark chocolate

CHRISTMAS PUDDING – 500 g

Our secret recipe pudding is going to turn heads this year

SALTED CARAMEL 250 g

One little jar – one hundred uses! Heat gently for a spectacular caramel sauce, roll through ice cream for an instant sundae or smear between layers of your favorite chocolate cake

CANDIED GINGER & DARK CHOCOLATE BAR – 100 g

Generous chunks of crystallised ginger

SWEET STUDIO LOLLIPOPS x 2

White & dark chocolate lollipops studded with surprises

Darren Takes Part In Masterchef/Second Bite Dinner

Darren with George, Matt, Gary and the Victorian Premier Hon. Ted Baillieu

Darren's dessert

Visit www.secondbite.org for more info

Presenting the dessert course

85% of the dessert course was food saved from waste

All guests took away a gift from Sweet Studio

Main course is served

The menu

I was very flattered to be asked to take part in a prestigious fundraising dinner last month for a charity called Second Bite. Second bite are an organisation that reclaims and receives donations of food destined for landfill and they then pack up and distribute this to organisations that help the less fortunate. You can find out more about Second Bite by clicking here www.secondbite.org/about_us/

The dinner was held at the Sacred Heart mission on Grey St, St.Kilda here in Melbourne. The mission are one of the grateful recipients of perfectly good food donated by the Second Bite team and it provided the perfect setting for this event.

Masterchef Australia's Matt Preston, George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan were on board to take part and they asked of my assistance for the dessert course. The canapés were designed by Matt, the first course cooked by George and his team from The Press Club and main was cooked by Gary Mehigan and his team from Fenix. The brief from Second Bite was to ensure that as much food as possible cooked on the evening was food destined for landfill, this was to highlight the obscene amount of perfectly good food that goes to waste every year. I am happy to say that we filled the brief and a staggering 85% of all of the food served on the night would have gone to waste.

On a personal level, I was extremely impressed with the work that Second Bite do and the work that St.Kilda's Sacred Heart mission do to help those less fortunate than us and I am happy to say that 90% of the food I used in the dessert was saved from Second Bite.

I produced a dessert that seemed to be well received by the guests including the Victorian Premier himself and his charming wife. The dessert was Banana, Caramelised White Chocolate, Avocado, Coffee and Passionfruit. I must say thanks to my chocolate sponsors Chocovic for the generous donation of chocolate that only had two weeks left on the best before date.

The night produced a stunning result for Second Bite and enough money was raised to provide 200,000 meals to the local community. Here at Burch & Purchese we now donate any of our unsold cakes to Second Bite and we are confident that someone deserving appreciates our efforts.

Thanks to the following for helping make the night a success

George, Gary & Matt
Sacred Heart Mission St.Kilda - www.sacredheartmission.org/
Peter Jones Events (especially Eliza) - www.pjse.com.au/
Bright Young Things - www.brightyoungthings.net.au/
Donna Le Page Communications    
Chocovic - www.cocoaalliance.com/
Rachelle Davey Photography

Chocolate Lego For "Art Of The Brick"

Really cool exhibits at "Art of the Brick"

Our own giant chocolate blocks (chlocks?) of Lego

Chef Razza spraying away

Set up inside the exhibit - opening night

Lemon & raspberry bricks

These proved to be too popular to keep up with production

T-Rex

Very clever stuff

Aussie icons in Lego too at the Melbourne exhibit

Even Warnie was impressed

New York based artist Nathan Sawaya creates amazing art from the versatile Lego brick. Recently his phenomenal exhibition "Art Of The Brick"came to Melbourne and we were asked to design and create a chocolate Lego installation to mark the events opening.

As a consequence of this event some pieces of chocolate Lego found it's way into our cake cabinet and they proved to be BIG hit with our customers. Well due to production issues (ie. sticking individual jelly pieces on by hand - made us go dizzy!) we are stopping the Lego for now. It WILL return though at some stage and we will let you know when it comes back in the Studio.

For now enjoy the images above and we will endeavour to get the Lego back ASAP, thanks so much to all of those who have enquired and apologies to all of those who missed out.

You can still catch "Art Of The Brick" here in Melbourne though and you should if you can because it is great fun for all the family.

Starlight 5 Chefs Dinner Images 16.06.11

Just a quick post to let you all have a look at some of the images from a very successful and rewarding 5 Chefs Dinner for Starlight Australia last month. Ian and Darren worked hard on impressing the 500 guests in attendance with their dessert "White Chocolate & Vanilla Mousse, Spiced Pineapple Jam and Yoghurt". Huge sums of money were raised for this extremely worthwhile charity and it was a humble experience to help in a small way to improving some lives. We hope to be asked again and applaud the event organisers and the very talented bunch of chefs also in attendance that night. Well done Shane Delia, Frank Camorra, Dan Hunter & Jason Camillo it was great to work with you all.

Burch & Purchese present 'Sweet Architextural' - new video compilation

Thanks goes to Ian Ritter at http://www.ianritter.net/ for his work on recording our event in March and for the editing and uploading of files.

Event Information: Starlight Foundation 5 Chefs Dinner Melbourne

We are extremely proud to have been asked to participate in this years prestigious 'Five Chefs' Dinner at the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne. The event is organised by the Starlight Children's Foundation of Australia as a means to raise funds for this important charity. This years dinner will be held on 16th June and we are honoured to be included in an amazing chef line up.


Chefs Line Up 2011

Dan Hunter - Royal Mail Hotel
http://www.royalmail.com.au/Pages/Food___Wine/People.aspx

Frank Camora - Movida
http://www.movida.com.au/

Shane Delia - Maha
http://www.shanedelia.com.au/

Jason Camillo - Grand Hyatt Melbourne
http://fivechefs.org.au/?page_id=224

Ian recently cooked for and attended a special preview of the menu for a selection of food media as a launch to the event. The food was spectacular and you can read a review of the lunch here on respected blogger Melbourne Gastronomes page:

http://www.melbournegastronome.com/2011/05/starlight-five-chefs-gala-dinner-2011.html

The dessert we have devised is fairly simple in execution to cope with 500 diners but complex in flavour profile, we have opted for a clean finish to a beautifully balanced meal. We are preparing a white chocolate mousse with yoghurt sponge and spiced pineapple with a pineapple & Vietnamese mint Jelly. An image of this can be found on the blog link above but we will take pictures on the night.
We are looking forward immensely to this dinner and hope that our dessert and auction prize on the night goes some way to helping those who need it.

http://fivechefs.org.au/?page_id=104

Event Summary: Food For Thought - National Stroke Foundation

We were fortunate and honoured to have been asked a while ago to present the dessert course at the National Stroke Foundation's annual fundraising dinner, 'Food For Thought'. This event occurred last week and we were in the company of some talented chef's and saw some amazing food being prepared for around 250 guests who were there. The night was to raise awareness and funds for such a worthy cause and we were happy to donate our services and hope that we helped in a small way to improving a sad situation. Our course which were prepared and presented on stage was in the same vein as one of our cakes in our collection. We made a 60% Kendari Chocolate Mousse infused with Tonka bean this had a liquid caramelised pear centre and was velvet sprayed and finished with a hazelnut crumb, chocolate twigs and pear jelly as well as our version of 'Nutella'. The service went smoothly and the feedback was great so thanks to all that attended and enjoyed. Some generous guests also 'won' an exclusive afternoon tea experience for four people at Sweet Studio worth $500 in the live auction for charity. We can't wait until we whip up something spectacular for these people and we will let you know how it goes. If successful we may start a weekly afternoon tea experience at Sweet Studio for our customers so watch this space. We will leave you now with the menu and links to the respective other chefs involved of whom it was an immense pleasure to work with.

National Stroke Foundation - http://www.foodforthoughtmelbourne.com.au/

MENU

'Old school eggs'                                                      
Scott Pickett, The Point
http://www.thepointalbertpark.com.au/restaurant/chefprofile.php


Superfood Salad, quinoa, Mt Vikos feta, avocado & broccoli                                                
Nathan Johnson, The Millswyn
http://www.themillswyn.com.au/


King Salmon, verbena, cucumber, cauliflower  
Michael Fox, Cecconi's Cantina
http://www.cecconis.com/


Roasted chestnut gnocchi, black leek, mussels, prawns & shellfish oil
Riccardo Momesso, Sarti
http://www.sartirestaurant.com.au/


Wagyu Wellington, wild mushrooms & truffle jus
Mathew Macartney, Chateau Yering
http://www.chateauyering.com.au/dining-chef.asp

Pop Up Studio! - We're Doing It All Again 196 Flinders Street

Wow! What a fantastic response to our first 'pop up sweet studio' last week here at Careers Australia building, 196 Flinders Street.

We had loads of our friends, blog readers, twitter & facebook friends down to the store last week on Thursday & Friday, so many in fact that we underestimated production and run out of delicious cakes on both days.

We even had an angry bird visit us and claim its prize of a coconut, ginger, mint & passion cake (thanks foodsze!! www.foodsze.com)

So......we're doing it all again and this time we have made MORE of everything. Also by popular demand we have started production on individual serves of the four flavours of cake we have on offer. We found last week that some of our customers were only after a couple of portions so come down to see us again this week and you won't be disappointed.

FOR TWO DAYS ONLY VISIT OUR 'POP UP' BURCH & PURCHESE SWEET STUDIO.

For the second week in a row!

Careers Australia Building, 196 Flinders Street, Melbourne

Thursday 31st - Friday 1st only

Open from 10 am - 6 pm

SPECIAL SWEET STUDIO CAKES OF THE WEEK ARE:

RASPBERRY, LYCHEE, WHITE CHOCOLATE & CHAMPAGNE

Champagne Jelly, Raspberry Champagne Mousse, Raspberry & Hibiscus Jam, Yoghurt & White Chocolate Sponge, Exaggerated Raspberry Cream, Puffed Wheat & Freeze Dried Raspberry & Lychees, White Chocolate Velvet Spray

COCONUT, PASSION FRUIT, GINGER & MINT

Coconut Mousse, White Chocolate & Mint Wafer, Passion Fruit Jelly, Coconut Caviar, Passion Fruit Curd, Salted Oat & Ginger Crumble, Brilliant White Chocolate Velvet Spray, Ginger Macaroon

DARK CHOCOLATE, PEAR & HAZELNUT

Tarakan 75% Chocolate & Vanilla Mousse, Caramelised Pear, Hazelnut Cream, Pear Pastry Cream, Chocolate Hazelnut Brownie, Hazelnut Milk Jelly, Dark Chocolate Velvet Spray, Gold Leaves

CHOCOLATE, MANDARIN, MURRAY RIVER SALTED CARAMEL

Kendari 60% Chocolate Mousse, Murray River Salted Caramel, Burnt Mandarin Cream, St Clements Marmalade, Aerated Chocolate Shortbread, Azabache Mirror Glaze & Orange Zest

All cakes are 18 cm (serves 6 - 8) and sell for just $45

PLUS

All varieties are available in individual portions for the amazing price of $8

Come down and see us or place an order by calling Cath on the number below

WE ARE ALSO OPEN FOR BUSINESS FOR BESPOKE CELEBRATION CAKES AND SPECIAL FUNCTION REQUIREMENTS - TO DISCUSS OR ARRANGE A CONSULTATION WITH OUR TEAM PLEASE CALL CATH 0417 010 728

Each cake is constructed in our signature style of intricate and delicious layers.

The feedback on our creations last week was amazing so make sure you don't miss out. 

Sweet Architextural - Feedback has been amazing!

Cricket Battenburg

Ian, gorgeous ballerinas and the famous chocolate flower cake

The crowd waits with anticipation for the 'Big Dessert Reveal'

Explaining the night with the help of Masterchef's Matt Preston

Those jellymongers with a wobbly Flinders Street Station

We wanted to say thanks to all who attended our night at the Espy earlier this month as part of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. We had so much fun with the jellymongers and meeting all of our friends on what was THE event of the festival. It seems everyone who attended enjoyed themselves as well and we have made lots of new friends with some special people. Some of them have been very kind and written some beautiful words on the night and we wanted to share those links here on this page. We have been blown away by the response and the following blogs really made it all worthwhile and we wanted to say a BIG thanks to those responsible for taking the time to write such kind words.
Check out the following links to blogs with full run-downs on the night and stunning photography that really captured the atmosphere.

Foodsze - http://www.foodsze.com/2011/03/sweet-architextural-night-a-sugary-fanfare.html

Lee Tran Lam - http://www.theunbearablelightnessofbeinghungry.com/2011/03/sweet-architextural.html

Inside Out - http://blogs.homelife.com.au/insideout/article/sweet/

Gina B - http://daintycakes.blogspot.com/2011/03/sweet-architextural-with-burch-and.html

Mrs Cake - http://www.mrscake.co.nz/2011/03/sweet-architextural.html

Ms I-Hua - http://msihua.com/2011/03/sweet-architextural-burch-purchese-with-bompas-parr-mfw-2011/

Our new friends are very special to us and we thank you very much, we hope to thrill, amaze and delight all of you in future events.

Reinterpreting Dessert Der Raum vs. Burch & Purchese 7th + 8th March 2011

Image used from http://www.stylesage.co.uk/hers/der-raum-vs-burch-purchese/ 

Here are a few images from our sold out two night appearance at the world famous Der Raum cocktail bar in Richmond.
We paired five of our sweet dishes with five of Der Raum's signature cocktails and thoroughly enjoyed the collaboration with Matt Bax and Matthew Rees and the rest of the talented team.
Ian whizzed up some fancy apple sugar tubes for one of the courses which contained burnt vanilla cream, explosive hazelnut crumble and acidulated apple. Other highlights were our mint mousse sphere with lime shortbread, mint tapioca, compressed cucumber and sugar mint leaf and our liquid centre Mojito marshmallows.
The boys at Der Raum produced absolutely stunning drinks pairings and we look forward to further events and collaborations with them in the future - watch this space for details! For a further review of the night check out the excellent blog Style Sage at http://www.stylesage.co.uk/hers/der-raum-vs-burch-purchese/ and thanks to those guys for some great images as well.

NEWSFLASH! - Pop Up Studio Open Day Set For Weds 9th

We are pleased to announce that we have set up a temporary Sweet Studio at the smart Training Centre at 196 Flinders Street in the city. We have been well accommodated and have made a great start to the mammoth prep list for our events for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival 2011. 

The new Careers Australia Training Centre is located right in the heart of Melbourne, next door to St Paul’s Cathedral and opposite Federation Square and the Flinders Street Train Station. This state of the art campus offers 6,000m2 of classrooms, computer labs, commercial teaching kitchens, clinical nursing skills labs, student common areas and other facilities. The Melbourne campus provides training for apprentices, trainees and full time students across a range of study areas and we are happy to have this association. 

We have been inundated with requests for tickets to our sold out event at the Espy on Thursday this week and we are sorry for those who could not attend. By way of a gesture we would like to announce that the Careers Australia Training Centre at 196 Flinders Street will be open for those of you who would like to pop down and have a sneak peak of production. The kitchen will be hard at works and we promise beautiful chocolate pieces to admire, decadent tastings of some of our creations and a chance to see Bompas & Parr at work creating iconic Melbourne buildings out of jelly!

So tell your friends and family to come down between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm on Wednesday 9th March, we hope to see as many of you as possible there will be plenty of photo opportunities and as we said a few sweet treats on offer. 

In the meantime we will be based in the city for the entire festival and work is well on its way, we have even had the pleasure of Mrs (mum) Burch making an appearance, travelling all the way from the UK to lend a hand!

For now enjoy the rest of the festival and we hope to see you on Wednesday this week, also keep an eye on the blog for updates, news and feedback and images from our 'Reinventing Dessert' nights at Der Raum on Monday and Tuesday this week.