Monday blues anyone!? Well let me try ward them off by making you day dream of some delicious desserts. You may hate me after this or love me even more (may be…?)

I LOVE this time of year. The christmas lights, festive cheers every where, Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, pop-up ice rinks and not to mention the FOOD! Talking of food, desserts hold a special place in my heart and waist line. Mmmm yummy!

One thing French people know how to do is dessert and they are bloody good at it too! So while gallivanting through Fulham Road, I ventured in to Maison Blanc neatly nestled next to Sophie’s Steakhouse (yummy steaks!) and Hachè Burgers (love their burgers).

Despite the gloominess outside, walking inside Maison Blanc was like a ray of sunshine. Well lit, gorgeous chic French interior– a perfect spot for some tea and cakes. The display is drool worthy with all the delicious desserts enticing people to come in and try some cake.

There’s still some sunshine left and luckily they’ve got a garden with seating at the back too! As always I was starving…nothing new. So a blitz through the menu, I knew what I wanted. It’s a light menu with breakfast options, sandwiches and soups!

To start off, I ordered the French onion soup to warm me up! 😀 And then a main of their Cod Fish cake that was served with a free range poached egg and hollandaise sauce. We also order the Artisan bread basket to share which was another new item on their menu. My friend opted for the Eggs Florentine. Since, we wanted to try the Christmas desserts, we didn’t want to overwhelm ourselves with the mains.

Unfortunately they had run out of their special Christmas hot drinks 🙁 so we consoled ourselves with a Latte and a Mocha. I was disappointed by my Latte which was below par but the staff member very graciously made me another cup 😀 It was still okay. Nothing mind blowing. Although my friend was quite happy with her Mocha.

Very quickly we started getting our food- the onion soup that had a sweet tinge to it and a generous garnish of cheese …mmm! It was a good start to the meal and just what I wanted after battling the cold outside. We loved the olive tapenade served with the selection of bread. It was so moorish and I could’ve easily finished the whole bread basket feasting on that deliciousness.

Whilst we were feasting on our starters, our mains arrived. In hindsight, it would’ve been good to have some wait time between the courses as I had to scoff down my soup to ensure my main didn’t get cold 🙁

As promised on the menu,  their savoury dishes are made fresh in the kitchen and I will vouch for that! The cod fish cake did not taste like it had just come out of the microwave. It had the right crunch to it’s breadcrumb coating and warm flavoured filling of potato and cod. It was heartening to see generous helping of cod in the fish cake. The oval shaped poached egg was delicate perched on the fish cake and topped with generous lashings of hollandaise sauce. It was turning out to be a great meal! My friend’s Eggs Florentine was decent too.

You know what’s coming next right??

Their Christmas desserts menu has proven so popular, most of the them were sold out 🙁 especially Buche de Noel aka “Choccy log”. But they did have the other three desserts we wanted to try. YAY!

So we chose, a slice of the Toffee Apple Buche, Raspberry Chocolate Buche and one from their Christmas cupcake range- the Christmas Elf 😀

Lo and behold- let the dessert-coma commence. Very rarely do you come across a dessert that looks as good or even better than their press photo. But luckily, all of these desserts looked immaculate in terms of presentation. The Toffee Apple Buche was glistening with a gold sheen and looked too good to eat where as the Christmas Elf looked super cute! 😀

The Toffee Apple Buche was exactly as it was described. It was filled with a spiced apple centre and generous chunks of apple (no manufactured cr*p) on top of a chocolate-y base. The subtle spice of the apple was more of an after-kick. The praline glaze completed this dessert to the T!

 

 

In contrast, the Raspberry Chocolate Buche was a let down. While it was perfect visually, the taste wasn’t what I expected. The raspberry jelly overwhelmed the chocolate mousse. I couldn’t taste the chocolate much except the occasional dark chocolate chip or ginger in my spoonful.

 

 

To counter this let down, the Christmas Elf sprung into action with a little festive cheer. A fun little dessert to take home too! The pistachio buttercream was not too sweet so it balanced out the chocolate praline and sponge base. Had we not eaten the mains, we would’ve annihilated these two desserts.

All in all, a great place to visit over the weekend or even during the week for a tranquil spot of tea and dessert. The desserts definitely rule this place- as they should! 🙂

So get your hands on them before they’re all sold out. The early bird catches the worm and all 😉

With 6 branches to choose from and 8 more branches outside of London- you’ll be sure to get your sweet tooth satisfied.

For more details, check out their website here. xxx