I hit peak isolation baking this week – finally joined the sourdough party, then got even more quarantine cult and used that precious discard to resurrect neglected bananas into golden sugar-crusted loaves. I resisted sourdough for a long time. I imagined it to be a time-consuming endeavour that would only yield an inferior product to what I could easily buy from my local. I was turned off by the multitude of starter tuturials filling my instagram feed. And I’ll now admit I was wrong. Time wasn’t an issue – a few minutes feeding in the evening, and a couple of hours intermittently folding the dough the day before you bake. What I didn’t factor into the equation was the level of satisfaction a bakery-worthy loaf would achieve (sorry, yes that’s a shameless brag). A bubbled browned crust shattering on slicing, a wide open ear (sourdough language, ok?) and a soft, open crumb with much more flavour than most store-bought bread would ever dream of. Best eaten with generous slabs of salted butter. At the very least, a new and very gratifying skill.

(And if you’re also interested: I relied heavily on recipes by Ed Kimber (over at The Boy Who Bakes) and Hannah (at The Swirling Spoon) the first couple of times, and they both have great step-by-step tutorials on their blogs and video tutorials in instagram highlights.)

Banana bread using sourdough discard was clearly the obvious next step (I used a recipe by Izy over at Top with Cinnamon (incidentally also vegan)). I don’t know quite why, individually and together, banana bread and sourdough have emerged as the popularity contest winners of social isolation. Sourdough is complex and takes time, a little more challenging but the ultimate stuck-at-home project; banana bread is basic and comforting, a forgiving, versatile but perhaps equally satisfying venture. Both are therapeutic, especially when puzzles and zoom calls just aren’t doing the trick. Sourdough in its routine, in the stretches and folds of that increasingly elastic dough, in the magical transformation of just flour and water. Banana bread in the ease with which its smell fills the house, the productive use of those gross bananas you bought and never got round to eating, and the small (ok, large) joy of sitting down to warm cake and tea. That probably doesn’t explain the phenomenon entirely – maybe more comes down to the viral properties of social media (a la #thecookies, or #thestew). If everyone else is doing something, how much more do you want to experience it too?

If you’re not on the sourdough bandwagon, my other favourite banana bread recipes include:

• The most luxurious version I’ve ever baked, more like dessert than bread, by Violet Bakery. Add chocolate chunks and it really is dessert.
• A never fail tahini, olive oil and honey version, studded with toasted walnuts and topped with sesame seeds. A little sturdier, also delicious.

Stepping away from bananas and bread for the moment, let me introduce you to my new favourite cookies – equally deserving of emerging from your oven. Spiced brown butter pecan dark chocolate cookies, specifically. (A good mouthful, ok). They lie toward the chewy end of the cookie texture scale, all fudge-y interior and just crisp outer edge, helped along by nutty browned butter and an all-brown sugar dough. A hint of cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and ginger makes your house smell like holiday season without overwhelming the cookie, and they’re studded with toasty pecans and puddles of dark chocolate. It’s also a one bowl mix with no creaming required, and just a 30 minute fridge rest time – you’re less than an hour total from pulling these out of the oven, promise. And for small batch isolation purposes, halving the recipe gets you nine perfect cookies (and if even that’s too many, pop some of the unbaked cookie dough balls in the freezer for next time you need a cookie *asap*)

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I’m not sure what to say here that you haven’t already heard, read or thought about. It feels a bit like the world has turned upside down – hitting refresh on the news only brings up more headlines that would have been unfathomable only a fortnight ago. This level of uncertainty is unprecedented and unsettling, and the scenes being beamed across the world from Italy are difficult to comprehend. Like much of the world, Victoria is now locked down with only non-essential services allowed to remain open. Despite this, it’s the headlines and the supermarket trips that are more anxiety-producing than actually being at work: the hospital thus far has retained a semblance of normalcy – the calm before the storm, some have labeled it. Wardrounds, phone calls and paperwork continue, although large meetings are now conducted by video and more and more patients require full glove, gown and mask precautions. Those higher up prepare for the worst case scenarios – ways to reallocate staff based on skillset and post-pone non-essential surgical procedures, for example.

Though the announcement of lockdown was absolutely necessary and warranted, it was simultaneously devastating for the hospitality industry. It’s hard to imagine many favourite cafes and restaurants recovering from indefinite closure – though we’ve witnessed many scramble to organise takeaway services in the past few days, it could never make up for the regular stream of food loving Melbourne patrons.

To describe the next few months (or year) to be challenging would be an understatement. One thing we can all do with the closure of the hospitality industry and extended time at home is to cook and bake more – satisfying and productive and hopefully a little therapeutic. I will continue to post new recipes, and if you have any ideas or suggestions of what you’d like to see please let me know.

These brown butter passionfruit meringue bars are one of my favourite bakes in a long time – judging by the reactions at work, it wasn’t just me. They’re also much easier than they look: a very simple crisp, nutty browned butter shortbread base is topped with a tangy baked passionfruit curd and a layer of torched Swiss meringue. The curd is a 5 minute whisk together affair, and the meringue utilises a technique of heating the egg whites and sugar over simmering water to dissolve the sugar and partially cook the eggs whites to make a more stable meringue. Then you get to break out the blow torch – what else could you want for while you’re stuck at home?

If passionfruit aren’t in season where you are, you could try frozen or canned passionfruit pulp or substitute lemon juice (though you may need to increase the sugar slightly with the latter option).

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Chocolate chunk cookies are the sort of strange entity where there have been millions (probably) tested and written about and yet there still seems to be room to squeeze a few more in. Something to do with the number of variables that can be adjusted – crispy, flat, chewy, soft, dense, buttery, sweet; the number of possible flavours – classic chocolate might be your favourite, but what about sesame, orange, espresso or walnut?; and the infinite ways you could combine butter, brown and white sugar, egg, flour and raising agents to achieve this. It’s also probably because they’re one of the simplest, most versatile baked goods you can make – what else is quick and easy, a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, handheld and can be thrown around in a container on the way to work/school/picnic and arrive hardly worse for wear, no forks or paper towels required? Even brownies are trickier – dry and cakey happens all too often. I debated for a while what I could possibly have to add to the chocolate chunk cookie conversation, until a photograph of mine reposted by Food52 recently sparked a flurry of recipe requests. Apparently you wanted another recipe too.

These are miso, rye and hazelnut dark chocolate cookies. Not classic, but thick and chewy in the centre, nutty with rye flour and toasted hazelnuts with a slightly savoury saltiness of miso, more chocolate than cookie in places. Rich as hell but also not too sweet. The miso isn’t overwhelming but somehow makes the cookie dough especially addictive, even more than usual. Flaky sea salt on top is essential. As per most cookies, they’re at their textural best the day of baking, but last well for a few days afterwards (and you could always revive them for a few minutes in the oven to recreate those chocolate puddles). A few notes on them below:

• Good quality dark chocolate is essential. I use Whittaker’s 72% chopped into chunks – you don’t need to stick to this, but please don’t just use baking aisle chocolate chips.
• The dough needs to be refrigerated for an hour before baking or they spread too much. You can refrigerate it for up to a couple of days, but leave them out on the counter for half an hour or so to soften a little before you bake them if possible. You could also freeze excess dough once scooped into balls, then bake straight from frozen.
• I use the pan-banging method as popularised by Sarah Kieffer of the Vanilla Bean Blog – it helps to create flatter, crisper edges while retaining a gooey cookie centre as the cookie dough ripples out when you bang the cookie tray down. It also helps with those pools of molten chocolate.

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Christmas season has officially hit! Without the heavy coats, mugs of hot chocolate or the snow and fairy light dusted branches that I’ve been swiping past, here in Auckland it’s more muggy spring rain and barbecues. Pine needles are lining the footpath outside (thanks to the Christmas trees being sold by my brothers) and the Christmas mince tarts are rolling out the door – buckets of brandy and spice laden fruit spiked with dark chocolate, and tray after tray of buttery sweet pastry. Topped with a star and a light shower of icing sugar, they’re pretty festive – I’ll be hard pressed not to eat one a day until the 25th. Do let me know if you’re in New Zealand (Auckland in particular) and you’d like to order a dozen or two.

So if last week’s post was the anti-dote to all the sweet baking I’ve been doing, this post is one of those sweets. This week I’ve worked with Vitamix to create this Salted Peanut Caramel Slice. It’s the perfect recipe for any Christmas party, potluck, morning tea get-together, or simply to indulge in with coffee – it’s a hit in any situation, and I haven’t found someone that doesn’t like it. It starts with a slightly salty, buttery miso shortbread base, topped with a rich dark-roasted peanut caramel – like a regular caramel sauce but with the addition of homemade peanut butter and chopped peanuts stirred through for crunch. Normally when I make caramel slice I go for the classic condensed milk based caramel, but I think this is my new favourite – much less risk of sickly sweetness, and a bolder caramel flavour, matched with the slightly savoury peanut butter. It’s finished off with a layer of dark chocolate and a hint of sea salt. It’s addictive, sweet, sticky, salty, nutty and rich – everything I want in a slice!

The Vitamix Ascent with the new Blending Cups and Bowls makes this slice even easier: simply use the pulse function to blitz together the shortbread ingredients in the jug, and then use the new Blending Cup to make a quick, homemade dark roasted peanut butter for the caramel. I haven’t stopped using the Cups and Bowls with my Ascent since I received them – it means you can blend smaller quantities of ingredients that wouldn’t work so well in the full size container (like this small batch peanut butter, salad dressing, chopped nuts and individual smoothies) AND means less dishes. The Vitamix Ascent is my go-to blender and I use it almost daily – it blends the thickest acai bowls and icy sorbet, makes super smooth almond butter, you can make soup from scratch (it even heats it up!) and it comes in handy for the big batches of hummus I make regularly. Christmas present anyone?

This post was created in collaboration with Vitamix, and I received the high-performance blender as a gift. As always, all opinions expressed are my own, including my appreciation of this versatile blender! Thank you so much for supporting the companies that support this blog.

Baker’s Notes:

•  The homemade small batch peanut butter works extremely well in the Vitamix Blending Cup. It means you know exactly what is in it and can roast your own peanuts – it tastes better than any store-bought nut butter I’ve tried. If you MUST, you can use a dark roasted store-bought peanut butter, but make sure it is a smooth nut butter that is just peanuts (± a little bit of oil and salt). If you use a peanut butter with lots of extra fats, additives and sugar it will affect your end result.
• Make sure the base and caramel are cool and set before you add the next layer on top. Pro tip if you are short on time – place the tin in the freezer. The base will chill super fast, and the caramel will set within an hour or two.
• Keep the slice in an airtight container in the fridge and bring out just before serving. If kept at room temperature, the caramel layer gets too soft. It’ll last at least a week.

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Has anyone else been devouring the new season of Chef’s Table: pastry edition? I’m not sure I’ve ever delighted over a documentary quite as much as the first episode detailing the rise of Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar. Partially due to her story and personality, and partially due to the personal memories and nostalgia evoked. I must admit that although other episodes have been interesting, the theatre and artistry of fine dining restaurants tend to come across as rather remote.

Of course, she was always going to be much more relatable because I’ve actually cooked and eaten her food. The unique unfrosted layer cake is signature Tosi – why on earth go to the effort of frosting a cake to perfection, when you could spend that time much more effectively by creating extra-delicious components to stack up inside? The german chocolate cake I posted a slight riff on a few years ago is a prime example. Not limited to chocolate cake and frosting, it builds up a caramel ‘crack’ coconut filling, pecan crunch, a chocolate cake soak for extra moisture and espresso chocolate frosting. Layered up with an acetate sheet lined tin for extra height and frozen overnight, it’s fiddly and time-consuming but unquestionably worth it. (That worth combines the wonderful riot of textures, flavours and visual appeal, the satisfaction of pulling it off, and the reactions you get from those you serve it to, in case you were wondering).

I think I overloaded on sugar partially due to Milk Bar during the week I had in NYC. Cereal milk soft serve eaten on a sun-drenched day in the West Village – a creation using the flavoured milk produced by soaking cornflakes in it; slices of crack pie on a park bench in Williamsburg – borderline sickly with sugar but with addictive buttery, nutty qualities you can’t quite put your finger on (milk powder and freeze dried corn are key); tucking a few compost cookies into my suitcase for the rest of my family to devour 30 hours later back home (compost meaning everything from coffee grinds to pretzels, potato chips and graham cracker crust). Souvenirs were a bottle of freeze dried corn powder (quite a different thing to cornflour, by the way) and a few bags of very American caramel chips – I have no idea what customs thought. 

Her style is incredibly innovative, slightly eccentric, very American and totally joyful – as she puts it, a sweet treat has a way of giving you “a moment where the weight of the world is just a little bit lighter on your shoulders”. Crack pie, the unfrosted layer cake, cereal milk soft serve and compost cookies have become instantly recognisable, even iconic, desserts. They’re precise, impeccably researched, trialed, tested and detailed, and draw on Tosi’s background as a pastry chef – but they also stem from her familiarity with all-American home baking, and for that reason they remain accessible. They’re not quite out of our reach. Maybe I’m not sure how I feel about the prepackaged cookies churned out, and the rapid expansions of Milk bar as a chain (I’m more on the ‘keep it exclusive rather than risk quality decline’ side of the fence), but it doesn’t take away from my admiration of the business and the woman behind it all. 

Speaking of home cooking, a couple of articles on this caught my attention. One posted on The Kitchn blog, the other by Nigella Lawson (who I have previously written about on a similar note back here). The former was aggrieved by the way in which Tosi was portrayed as someone with roots in home baking, and thought this was reinforcing the stereotype of women in the kitchen at home and men receiving awards as restaurant chefs. Though maybe Netflix could have put more emphasis on her pastry chef years and awards for Milk Bar (and on a separate note, could do with more diversity), my initial reaction was that this was a bit harsh – surely home cooking is no longer just the domain of 50s housewives? Nigella’s article “Home Cooking is a Feminist Act” lends another perspective – though she is more talking about how she prefers the title of home cook to chef, whereas clearly Tosi has faultless pastry chef credentials, some of her points still stand. As she puts it, “yet I have always felt that to disparage an activity because it has been traditionally female is itself anti-feminist.” The creativity and independence enabled by home cooking is not inferior to the theatrical land of professional kitchens. 

Anyway, a la Tosi, I attempt to push my limits at least a little with baking. I want my recipes to be approachable and managable, but at least the majority of the time seek out flavours and combinations that aren’t already detailed in every other recipe book. These espresso brownies with caramelised white chocolate ganache are a prime example. I’m not the biggest fan of white chocolate (to be honest, I actively avoid it). But the silky golden hues of the caramelised version had been taunting me for a while – trying it myself was inevitable. Clearly, as this post attests, it was worth it. Roasting the chocolate adds a rich, caramelised note to something that is ordinarily sickly, and it whips up to a gloriously fluffy and addictive frosting. The brownie itself is so dark and espresso filled it almost has a bitter edge, that meshes perfectly with a sweet frosting. They have an intensity that makes a small piece all you need, and could just as easily be served as a dinner party dessert as for an afternoon tea party. Yes, caramelised white chocolate is a bit of a labour of love, but sometimes it’s worth it (just make sure you read the trouble-shooting section first). 

Trouble shooting and tips & tricks: 

• Allow yourself enough time! Almost all caramelised white chocolate problems are fixable with a bit of time. 
• Try to use a white chocolate brand with >30% cocoa solids if you can get it, as it will be easier to make a ganache with. Most supermarket brands are <30% and tend to seize and crumble as you caramelise them – however, mine did this and it still worked very well. Just don’t freak out when it crumbles as you cook it – it will remelt when you add the hot cream. Have a look at the photographs below for the colour I took my chocolate too. 
• To turn your white chocolate ganache into a whipped frosting, it has to cool to room temperature or slightly cooler. If it is still warm, it won’t lighten and thicken. If you have this problem, just put the bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes or so and try again. 
• If you feel like your ganache is splitting (getting oily, or separating), place it in the fridge for 10 minutes and then beat again until it emulsifies. 
• Other guides with more pictures: see Food52 and David Lebovitz.
• Below are some pictures of the caramelised white chocolate process for me:

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