The Kiwi love affair with salted caramel shows no sign of abating, at least when it comes to macarons. Danielle Cubis, owner of Spongedrop Cakery, says she can never make enough to satisfy the locals and tourists who visit her Mount Maunganui shop. The tiny sweet French meringue is a specialty of Danielle and her team’s – and they’re deceptively hard to get right.
“A good macaron has a nice crispy shell, is a little bit soft in the centre, and needs to have a bit of chew,” Danielle says. Salted caramel, and Heilala vanilla, macarons fly out the door and the only problem is finding enough time to bake more. They make them after hours because they’re so delicate and take up a lot of room in the cakery.
“The easiest way to judge you are succeeding is the number of repeat customers. That’s how we know people want our baking in their lives”
Still, it’s a good problem to have and it means that her business is succeeding after just over a year of operating on Salisbury Ave. She learnt to make macarons, and much more, while working at a cake shop in London’s Putney back in 2011, and this is when she first started chasing the dream that became Spongedrop.
While there are always fresh challenges in baking, Danielle says the hardest task for her has actually been running the cakery. “It’s much easier than last summer, though, when I
was pretty much winging it!” It really helps to be one of the first places that tourists spot after exiting cruise ships at the Port of Tauranga. “The shop is really pretty and welcoming. People can sit down, use the free wi-fi and enjoy a coffee and cake.”
10 Salisbury Ave, Mount Maunganui | spongedrop.co.nz
