The Pleasure Dome

Cocoa Patisserie

167 High Street, Kew

The title of this post is very fitting. I often get distracted by the tittle of dishes and there was no exception when one day I walked into Cocoa Patisserie and saw the Pleasure Dome. The first time I purchased it, it was from sheer novelty. It was such a good looking cake that I just HAD to have it. I knew it was a chocolate mousse cake but I had no idea how the thing was constructed. I had taken it into work for a colleague's birthday, and for hours before actually cutting it open there was heated discussion as to the internal make up of the "dome". I had suggested that it consisted of a cake shell and then filled with mousse. Oh how wrong I was. It was much more complex than this. In actual fact it is many layers of cake followed by mousse and then covered in chocolate ganache, with ganache piping, chocolate flowers and juicy blueberries. 

Recently I purchased it again for my brothers birthday. This time I decided to go for the coffee Pleasure Dome. The flavour of coffee is definitely there. When you think of mousse cakes, you think of something that is light and airy, in fact this cake is extremely dense and rich. It should only be eaten with a tall glass of icy milk.....well thay's how I like it.

I really like Cocoa. I try to buy most cakes from there, but so far they have all proven to be extremely rich, this isn't a problem so much if you take it into account when giving out portions, portion size is always important......the bigger the better I say! 

Even though they stock a healthy range of small pastry's and biscuits, I had never tried anything else they have on offer. So when we stopped by to purchase the Pleasure Dome we decided to indulge ourselves. I had a polenta, lemon and almond cake, and Daz had an apricot danish (which is extremely boring, he always buys apricot danish's). My polenta cake was beautiful. Polenta cakes have a tendency to be very heavy and a little bland, but they had soaked it in a thick lemon syrup, which made it moist and tasty. I thoroughly enjoyed it, a great way to start the day. Daz also enjoyed his danish, he especially enjoyed the thick vanilla custard that the apricots were sitting on.  

At the moment Cocoa only has the one store in Kew, but I think this might quickly change when everyone discovers the awesomeness of this place. Laurent has 13 stores in Melbourne and I think Cocoa's is much better. All you have to do is walk past their window fronts to be instantly lured within.

Its been almost 2 weeks since my last visit, I think I will have to go back soon, I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms!