Sweets preview at the Immigration Museum + a competition

Disclosure: Alastair and I ended the Sweets Festival preview courtesy of the Immigration Museum.

Do you have a sweet tooth? My sugar loving friends, this post is for you. (And see the end of this post for a giveaway.)

This week I was invited to the Immigration Museum for a preview of one of their upcoming exhibitions on sweets. In March, the museum is launching a program called Sweets: Tastes and traditions from many cultures. There’s an exhibition, a festival, and a dinner, which will explore sweet foods and drinks from several Victorian communities: Indian, Italian, Japanese, Mauritian and Turkish.


As soon as Haz and I walked into the museum and saw the TABLE OF SWEETS, we made a beeline for it. There weren’t many people there at that stage, so we pounced… pulling out our cameras and snapping away before people showed up to ruin our shots. (We have our priorities. Photos first!)

I didn’t try everything – there was quite a lot of sugar on the table – but here are a few pictures of some of the treats. They were all hand made by members of the communities mentioned above. Gorgeous

From Japan, there was mochi (which incidentally is one of my most favourite sweets ever in the world): green tea mochi and daifuku.

There was also some beautiful nerikiri (sweetened white bean paste in a rice flour skin) pictured here, and in the first photo up at the top.

I must admit that I know very little about Mauritian food, so it was really exciting to see some of their sweets. There was gateau gingli, the sesame covered balls on the right. These are also called laughing cakes/cookies, and are small balls of dough that are dipped in egg, covered with sesame seeds and fried.

Also from Mauritis, were some excellent banana tarts.

These tarts, puit d’amour, surprised us all – hiding underneath the coconut was a layer of custard. The tart bases were made with a very short, biscuity dough.

Moving on to some Turkish sweets, there was tel kadayif, pastries with a fine vermicelli pastry that’s made from wheat and water.

As well as a plate of hanim gobegi (which means lady navels, as far as my research tells me!)

And of course, baklava. The woman who made the baklava came up to us and pretty much demanded that we try her baklava. Hehee. I did try it – sooooo deliciously buttery and sweet.

From Italy, there was pistachio biscotti, cannoli, and a lemon tiramisu.

And finally, from India there was gulab jamun.

See what I mean about there being a lot of sugar on the table? And I haven’t even shown everything that was there. I was all sugared out by the end and we had to go eat a bowl of ramen to compensate. šŸ™‚

Now – on to the giveaway details:

Competition

Win a double pass to the Immigration Museum (I’d recommend that you use it to attend the Sweets Festival being held on Sunday 18 March) plus a Sweets recipe book featuring recipes that will be in the exhibition.

You know the drill by now – to enter, leave me a comment on this post and I’ll draw the winner randomly. Make sure you include a valid email address when you comment so I can contact you if you win (your email won’t be published). Open to Australian residents only. Entries close midnight Thursday 8 March.

Update: this competition has now closed. Congrats to Jess for being the winner!

Good luck. šŸ™‚

For more on the Sweets exhibition and festival, check out the Immigration Museum website.

And for more on the Sweets Festival preview, see I’m so hungree.


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Immigration Museum
400 Flinders Street,
Melbourne
Phone: 13 11 02
Web: museumvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum