Saturday morning lying in my bed feeling pretty trashy, visions of a Youeni egg-n-bacon sarnie dancing in my head.   Too lazy to get out of bed just yet, flicking through Instagram, I come across a pic of Youeni’s salted caramel tart. ‘Helloooo, breakfast dessert!’ Freshly motivated, I throw on clothes, hat, sunnies and head out.  I know I shouldn’t but I’m sooo having that salted caramel tart….all to myself.

A dark pool of salted caramel encased in a dark salted crust arrives before me. I dip the tines of my fork in the pool and lick the sweet, dark, salty, slightly smoky caramel.  Oooooh, I am going to slowly savour this baby. .
My fork cuts into crust that crumbles away  oozing caramel onto the wooden board. The filling and crust are a sweet-salty balance; smooth, creamy with a little crunch I want it to last forever. With each tiny forkful that I cut away more salted caramel oozes over crust crumbs that remain on the board.  Breaky dessert heaven! Thank you Chris Starke for making 3-hat pastry accessible for an *everyday* breakfast.

…….days later…….my three initial blog posts are pretty healthy so I’m thinking the next one has to be naughty. Just as I’m wondering what I might do, my flatmate is tagged in a pic of Gnome’s affogato of the week. You guessed it, Salted Caramel Fudge. Now, who doesn’t love an affogato? Add salted caramel fudge? I’m all over it. I immediately start plotting when I can get to Gnome early in the day.  Clearly, I’m going to need an entire day to burn off the kilojoules! Saturday morning and I make my way to Gnome.  I sit down and order without a glance at the menu telling the waitress it is my sole reason for being today. Within moments I am salivating over 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream, 2 thick chunks of salted caramel fudge and 1.5 shots of strong espresso. O.M.G. Hmmm…now how best to attack? Yay, for tiny spoons! A little ice cream,  a little coffee…mmmmm. Picking up a slab of fudge I scoop up a bit of ice cream and bite into the fudge.  It’s closer to caramel than fudge in consistency and texture.. For my Canadian friends, it’s chewier than a Kraft Caramel but not as hard as Mackintosh Toffee. At 8 bucks, it is super value. #foodgasm

Either the angels or the demons were on my side.  I accidentally deleted my pic from Gnome.  Knowing I had to share such divine goodness, what choice did I have….but to return the next day! Every. Single. Bit. As. Good.  Hell, I’ve thought about going back everyday since….

It wouldn’t be a spectacular without a third naughty nicety. Every Tuesday night coming home from tennis the street outside Messina is teeming with people. Summer or winter, no matter how cold, the place is packed and I’ve never been. Salted Caramel gelato it must be then. It is their best seller after all. The perfect follow-on from tapas at Foley Lane. Overwhelmed with a decadent choice of flavours, it’s all I can do to stay focussed on salted caramel. Ummmm… and I do team it up with coconut-pandanus. Cold creamy sweet, salted perfection with tiny pieces of fudge. Bigger chunks of fudge wouldn’t go astray, IMO, but that’s hardly a complaint.

So, is there a winner in this salted caramel trifecta? There’s really only one way to find out…

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