Zumbo's Golden Ticket - a 23 carat gold macaron
(oh yes, I went there.)
Many MasterChef fans will know the fear the mere mention of his name brings to contestants. He’s burdened them with the macaron tower, the croqembouche and the V8 cake as challenges they’ve had to reproduce. In a growing pool of celebrity chefs, he’s proving to be remarkably ganache-centred.
Zumbo is a fly-on-the-flypaper-on-the-wall-of-the-kitchen view of the life of Adriano Zumbo and all the sweet, gooey chaos that entails. His patisserie in Balmain is the destination for the the most amazing treats & sweets across Sydney and around Australia. This series on SBS one shows the man and his team hard at work keeping his patisseries and lab churning out the most creative food art today.
The series is pacy and offers great insight into the life of this amazing pastry chef, capably narrated by Pia Miranda. The first episode focused on the preparations for ‘macaron day’, an annual event in the Zumbo world, where he and his team prepare 30,000 macarons for sale across a range of 63 flavours including: Redskin, Pig’s Blood Jelly, Fish & Chips, Hamburger and Peach & Pork Crackling. This time, it also happened to coincide with Zumbo’s 29th birthday. Check out the cake they made him…
Adriano’s fascination with Roald Dahl’s character Willy Wonka is easy to understand. Both are geniuses, both make sweet things everyone desires, and both have special factories to create in and bring their whimsy to reality. I wonder where he keeps his Oompa Loompas. Perhaps that’ll be revealed in the final episode?
Zumbo – Thu 7:30pm, SBS one
Image/Video sources – SBS.