The Adriano Zumbo cookbook ‘Zumbo’ is filled with all the sweetest things that you could imagine from ‘salted butter popcorn zumabrons’ (macarons) to ‘gibbo & zumb’s australian adventure’, my rendition is pictured above. But is it too complicated to be of value to most home cooks?
In my opinion this book definitely has not been adequately ‘dumbed down’ for the home cook. To make the dessert below, you have to follow ten recipes and amongst other things you will need xanthum gum, yellow pectin, gold gelatine leaves, agar agar, 6 vanilla beans, inverted sugar, cocoa butter, a ‘dents de loup triangular metal mold’ and a demisphere flexipan silicone mold. If you have all of these in your kitchen then buy this book, if not expect to find similarly expensive or hard to source ingredients in most of the other recipes too.
(Strawberry jelly, pistachio creme anglaise, banana & passionfruit cream covered in sable sand crumb (my favourite bit of the dessert), lime marshmallow, ginger ice cream and sous-vide strawberries )
If you are in Sydney I’d suggest visiting the Zumbo Store instead – the one at Star City has a dessert train (just like a sushi train but filled with sweet delights) and a patisserie shop.
Recipes list a weight rather than a quantity which makes it hard to shop. For example if I need 83g (2.93 ounces) of egg yolk for the recipe, how many eggs is that? Will one passionfruit be enough to give you 13g (0.46 ounces) of juice strained from fresh passionfruit – better buy two just in case. But no, you actually needed three!
Strangely the recipes don’t even tell you the number of serves that you are making.
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nut free macaron recipe 
choc orange macaron recipe
Your recreation looks great
I was given the Zumbo book for Christmas last year, as I love to bake however it is impossible to make anything from it. You said it when the book has not been dumbed down for the home cook. It is a great coffee table book… And great to get ideas… I love Adrino Zumbos cafes and patisserie.. I go there when I visit Sydney…
I agree i love Zumbo (im from UK but love Oz Masterchef) i bought his book but cant do any recipes as they are very complex and now know why the ozzy masterchef contestants feel hopeless when he walks into a room & they hav all the ingredients to hand!! i do read through it though as he has great ideas and flavours that match well….he is genius but home cooks unless are very experienced can only dream of what his treats taste like…as im in UK i will probably never find out!!