Summer: Slip, slap, slop, slurp
A competition in which cafes and eateries try to outdo each other to create the most delicious or decadent drink is about to bring a wave of chocolate-dipped bananas, jelly slushies and lemon meringue pies to Lower Hutt.
Milkshakes sprinkled with popcorn and drinks topped with pieces of pavlova are among the mouthwatering offerings in the Cool As Challenge, which runs from tomorrow until the end of January. Buzz’s cafe manager Jae Stuthridge came up with the idea for the Sherbet Jelly Slushie, topped with icecream in a cone, wafer sticks, whipped cream, a lollipop, and a dusting of homemade sherbet.
She hadn’t seen any other cafes serve up a slushie for the challenge in previous years, and added a twist by blending jelly and sherbet syrup. Outside-the-box offerings this year include the Crooked Elm’s Ultimate Lemon Meringue Pie, an alcoholic lemon drink topped with a burnished
Swiss meringue and a cookie, with a salted limoncello truffle dipped in dark chocolate.
There is also Cutler’s Gastropub’s drinkable pavlova, and Fix Federation’s cinnamon doughnut in a cup milkshake, and the Atrium’s Not so Karen, a lychee, pink gin, and lemon juice cocktail.
Gray said the difficult part was creating something that would draw customers in, but wasn’t so hard to make that it interfered with the cafe’s core business.
Over at Atrium, head chef and coowner Anja Hajdarevic wanted to inspire nostalgia when she created the Not My Circus, a peanut butter and banana milkshake topped with a frozen chocolate-dipped banana, Neapolitan icecream in a waffle cone, whipped cream and peanuts. “You know when you’re a kid, banana splits are the favourite thing you could possibly get. I just wanted to focus on making people happy with the drink, but then also make some sort of colossal drink.”
In Queensgate Mall, Hudsons cafe will be serving the Nutella Madness Milkshake, a Nutella shake blended with icecream and topped with Hershey’s Kisses, Ferrero Rocher, and chocolate brownie. Customers can vote for their favourite by QR code at each cafe or on the Cool As Challenge Summer Refresher’s Facebook and Instagram pages.