A pillowy overnight brioche dough wrapped around sticky salted caramel with hints of coffee, buttery macadamias and gooey white chocolate.  Jump to Recipe

If I had to pick one baked good that for me means family, it would be brioche. Partly because I’ve been making them for as long as I remember – Christmas morning always features these giant sticky cinnamon, date & walnut versions, and partly because their decadence and relatively time-consuming nature means I only ever make them for a crowd (and yes, the endless appetites of my three brothers constitutes a crowd – they’ll easily polish off a few each).  Brioche is intrinsically linked with family and friends, holidays, long weekends and abundant coffee and laughter.  I make brioche loaves to cut slabs for weekend french toast feasts (this coconut peach version was a favourite) and to soak in custard and transform into dinner party-worthy dessert- at least this rhubarb & dark chocolate bread & butter pudding, anyway. It even emerges in a savoury context for summer barbecues – fluffy, slightly buttery brioche buns make your burgers 1000x better.

It also usually means I have time to spare, so is completely dissociated from studying and medicine. Essentially the opposite of my rushed morning porridge!

This particular batch of salted coffee caramel, macadamia & white chocolate brioche scrolls were constructed on Easter weekend back home. I roped my brother into helping me with construction, then convinced a friend to be my hand model once they were out of the oven – hence why there are three different sets of hands in these photos (bribery was definitely involved, at least for the former). The scrolls were even better than I’d hoped – they manage to be sweet but not TOO sweet, balanced by the salt-flakes and hint of coffee throughout the caramel with the nutty crunch of macadamia. The sort of good where you can’t stop eating until they’re removed from your line of sight…and then you just go hunting for the rest anyway (to be honest, I doubt you’ll have any leftovers).

Because they prove overnight in the fridge, they’re also perfect for maximising your sleep in – priorities, am I right?! The next morning, it will only take an hour until you are pulling them hot from the oven: all you need to do is roll them, spread with caramel and leave to prove for 20 minutes and bake.

They were inspired by the amazing Magnolia Kitchen – a bakery in Auckland whose Snapchat, run by owner Bets, you should be following (warning – it’ll make you seriously hungry in the morning). I STILL haven’t managed to get there but in the meantime couldn’t hold off trying the caramel/white chocolate / macadamia combination. It’s epic.

In other news, I’m busy sorting my life out before I fly to London this weekend! It’s the only break from university placement until fourth year medicine exams hit in November so it’s going to be a complete study-free zone. My google maps are covered in pins (hit me up if you have more recommendations!), airbnbs are booked, and my suitcase is hiding somewhere in the cupboard, ready to be pulled out a few hours before I leave (typical). There are so many things to be excited for my head feels like it might explode, but highlights include tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (!! – I grew up with Harry Potter, and it remains my favourite series of all time), a weekend in Paris with ALL the patisseries from Du Pain et Des Idees, visiting Ottolenghi in London (probably multiple times, let’s be honest) and exploring Prague and Berlin. To follow my adventures, updates will mostly be over here on Instagram stories.

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Gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar free, but you wouldn’t know it. 

Healthier banana, passionfruit and coconut loaf – gluten, dairy and unrefined sugar free but you wouldn’t know it.  Jump to Recipe 

To be honest, I don’t particularly like the word ‘healthy’ when it comes to describing food. I mean, how do you quantify healthiness? It’s not like at an arbitrary number of calories or grams of today’s ultimate taboo, sugar, you can say – yup, that’s healthy, or nope, that’s not. For me, it’s really about context: the context of each individual and their needs, activity levels and the remainder of their normal diet as well as the nutritional value behind those kilojoules. In my opinion, sweet treats are a perfectly healthy part of a balanced life.

As you may remember from a few weeks back, I just finished a month with no sugar (with the exception of fruit). The original aim was to remind myself that a sweet treat isn’t necessary every day, with every cup of coffee or following every meal, and to gain more of an appreciation for the sugar I do consume. Reading Ottolenghi’s In Defence of Sugar this week cemented my thoughts on the whole thing. Last week’s tender pistachio cake shared with friends, fragrant with lemon and topped with ripe, tart summer plums; the fudgy, brownie-like chocolate rye cookie dotted with sea salt flakes savoured alongside my morning coffee; or the award winning fruit studded hot cross bun, fresh from the oven and brushed with a sticky sweet glaze –  those moments are worth much more to me than dietary restrictions. The upshot is that I’m back to the original mantra – everything in moderation. Including moderation. Always aiming for a balance of getting moving every day, mainly fruit and vegetables, not much processed food with undecipherable ingredient lists, eating a little more mindfully rather than in front of a screen, and yes, the occasional treat.

The other tactic I’ve found useful in the past few weeks, both for my wallet and my waistline, is limiting myself to a once-per-week grocery shop. It won’t work for every situation, but I haven’t managed to do a second supermarket visit (usually hungry at the end of a long day at university) without coming away with multiple unnecessary items. It’s an “I see I want” kind of thing. It also forces me to be more creative towards the end of the week with scraps of herbs, odds and ends of vegetables, those eggs in the fridge and a can of chickpeas in the cupboard – which is oddly satisfying for my recipe-minded brain and reduces waste. On that note, check out these waste-less recipes by Anna Jones in the Guardian this week – I need to start using my carrot tops and the brine from the capers jar!

These are not new concepts or an overnight solutions – but together, it’s a start. 

In that vein, this healthier banana, passionfruit & coconut loaf is a little more nutrient dense than usual, without compromising on flavour. I see little point in reducing the sugar and fat in a recipe only to come up with something you’re not really going to enjoy, but I would honestly eat this any day. It’s also perfect for those who are coeliac, gluten-intolerant, dairy-free or simply trying to cut back on the level of refined sugar in their diet. It’s a one bowl, stir and bake kind of deal too  – 10 or 15 minutes tops from start until your loaf tin hits the oven.  The passsionfruit and coconut give it a tangy, tropical vibe, taking your banana bread to the next level. You can’t taste the coconut oil at all, and honey gives it a burnished caramel edge when cooked. Enjoy!!

Also please note: the colour of the loaf’s interior is much browner than shown in the pictures, as I adapted the recipe further after the original photos. The exterior is practically the same. 

PS: does anyone have the answer to why the banana on top often turns a little pink in the oven? Something to do with the potassium, maybe? Would love to know!

Cook’s Notes:

• If your bananas are not super black and spotty, place on a baking tray in the oven at 200°C, whole (skin on, unpeeled) for 10-15minutes or until blackened and just starting to ooze juice. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then peel and mash. Continue with the recipe as normal
• The colour of the loaf’s interior is much browner than shown in the pictures, as I adapted the recipe further after the original photos. The exterior is practically the same.
• To make it gluten-free, swap the flour for buckwheat flour or your favourite gluten-free blend.
• I’m also keen to try this using spelt flour rather than plain – let me know if you give this a go!

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Ottolenghi’s Cornbread with Maple Roast Peaches and Maple Mascarpone Cream – decadent, summery and perfect for a weekend brunch.  Jump to Recipe 

I have uncharacteristically poor time management when it comes to airport departures. Every. single. time. The morning of most recent departure for Melbourne was a case in point. I suddenly found myself unpacking everything, swapping bags and packing extra bags (still unsure quite how I accumulated a whole extra suitcase worth of stuff during my summer at home), visiting the bank, getting stuck in traffic attempting to buy sushi (for the trip, you know!), frantically copying down a few recipes to try, bubble wrapping extra plates for the trip back and generally being fairly disorganised. I’m not usually that way. Really, I’m a planner: a monthly plan, a weekly plan, calendars synced up on my phone and computer, an ongoing, ticked off to-do list. It just all repeatedly fails when it comes to packing.

Leaving for Cuba was another scramble. Photographs the previous day of a new pomegranate meringue recipe, decked out with strawberry sorbet and lashings of mascarpone cream, had not worked out. I was mostly packed – the sort where everything is within (or at least in the close vicinity) of your suitcase – so figured there was surely room for another try. Nope. It yielded yet more unsatisfactory photographs, a bit of a mess and a stressed rush around the house collecting chargers. By the time we were in the airport taxi, no one was positive that the bottom door of the house was locked, or certain the freezer had been extra firmly shut when that melty sorbet was abandoned. I mean, I was fairly sure. But when you start questioning it … well, you’d ideally like 100% sure when you’re not back for a month. That kind of doubt eats at you. We had a neighbour pop around in the end.

In future, the aim is to be completely, suitcase shut kind of packed the night before. Anyone have any other solutions?

The aforementioned mascarpone cream was the sort you could easily eat spoonfuls of, and would accompany any kind of dessert or cake. It’s almost like a cross between a tangy cream cheese frosting and whipped cream – making a fitting accompaniment for this not-too-sweet grilled cornbread with maple roast peaches.

I’ve actually never eaten cornbread in any capacity prior to this – corn tortillas, grilled street corn and even sweet corn ice cream was abundant in Mexico, but cornbread seems to be more of a southern US staple. Probably more commonly used in savoury dishes than sweet, but I’m sure some of you know much more about it than me! I’m normally more a sweet breakfast french toast kind of girl (hence the THREE separate french toast recipes on this blog), but this recipe in Nopi looked too golden, syrupy and decadent to pass over. It’s perfectly seasonal, with sweetcorn and juicy local peaches in abundance, and only requires a smidge more effort than regular french toast.

The cornbread itself is studded with toasted fresh sweet corn and finely ground polenta, then lightened with separately beaten egg whites folded through the batter. Cooled slices of bread are fried in a tablespoon of butter until crisp at the edges and the pale yellow slices are transformed with golden swirls. It’s really not like frying cake: the sugar is limited to a tablespoon of honey, and it’s balanced with milk and yogurt. Meanwhile, peaches are roasted for half an hour than broiled for charred edges, the skin wrinkling up and sinking into the maple cooking syrup. A dollop of mascarpone cream and a scatter of blueberries finishes it off. What could be better for a summer weekend brunch?

Cook’s notes:

• You can make the cornbread the night before (maximising your sleep-in!), or the morning of.
• If you had extra cornbread the next day that was a little stale, you could try cooking it like french toast by dipping the slices of bread in a milk-egg mixture to overcome any dryness.

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Almond-Crusted French Toast with Cinnamon Apple & Creme Patisserie – golden, eggy slices of bread coated in almonds, with caramelised apple & strawberries.  Jump to Recipe 

French toast, pain perdue. Considering it isn’t certain whether it originated in France at all, the latter does seem fitting – meaning “lost bread”, a way to reclaim stale, or unwanted loaves. As a child, early on Sunday mornings, while the house was gradually waking up (this was before early morning sport training and events), Dad would make us french toast for breakfast – I don’t even know how old I was. It was a weekend treat, a lazy brunch hosted at 8am, because we’re not the best at sleeping in around here. Later, I would duck down the road to the shops, the streets devoid of cars at that hour, to grab a fresh loaf from the local bakers delight. Better that than to not have french toast at all. Then we got busier, and busier – and french toast kind of dropped off the radar. I still loved it though, and it was my favourite after Saturday morning swim training – golden, rich slices of whatever bread was left-over, surrounded by generous pools of sticky maple syrup. But that gradually stopped too – one of those things that you can never put your finger on what changed or when, only that it was no longer there.

I rediscovered it at Melbourne cafes after moving here – french toast with all the bells and whistles, transformed into a sophisticated brunch dish. Twice baked and paired with creme patisserie and poached rhubarb at Three Bags Full, coconut crusted with pineapple, lime curd and coffee caviar at Industry Beans. Banana bread french toast with pears and salted caramel at Sardi. The over-the-top Elvis french toast at Seven Seeds, with banana caramel, whipped peanut butter and house cured bacon. Infinite possibilities, really. It was back on my mind, and back on the breakfast table.

But with all these fancy versions, I must admit – french toast shouldn’t really need a recipe. It’s something that should be pulled together from the basics of egg and milk, left-over day-old bread and whatever else you feel like putting in it on the day or can find in the fridge. It’s a not-recipe, like food52’s latest app. I still don’t really measure my french toast custard mixture – a few eggs, a splash of milk and a pinch of cinnamon, whisked and dunked.

Although this blog is based on the premise of recipes, of making a certain dish in a certain way – with timing and measurements and temperatures – I still believe that it is an essential skill to be able to cook without one. To have some idea of flavours that might work together, to know the basics of sautéing and oven-roasting times, to be able to adapt recipes to what you have on hand, and to be able to make simple recipes like french toast, or scrambled eggs, or a tomato pasta sauce – purely off the top of your head. If everyone left school able to make 10 basic, healthy recipes from scratch, the current global health problems of obesity and diabetes wouldn’t be such an issue.  A spaghetti bolognese, a stir-fry, healthy burgers…they don’t have to be intimidating. I loved a quote that Traci published last week, by Harry Balzer, a prominent food researcher: “Eat anything you want; enjoy all of your food. Anything you want. Have an apple pie, cookies, ice cream… have all you want. I’m just going to ask you to do one thing. Make all of it.”

But if you want, and if you have the time – this almond-crusted french toast with cinnamon apple & creme patisserie is my current favourite. The almonds add a nuttiness and a crunch to the french toast that is otherwise missing, the creme patisserie a creamy, not-too-sweet layer soaking into the golden, egg soaked bread. Apple is sizzled in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon until tender and just caramelizing, and it’s all topped with fresh strawberries and another drizzling pool of maple syrup (treat yourself with top quality, it’s worth it.) Breakfast of champions, right?

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Brûlée Bircher Muesli with Ginger Poached Pear and Tamarillo – creamy, crunchy and healthy with a crackly creme-brulee-like topping.  Jump to Recipe 

Fact of the day: bircher muesli was first eaten by patients at a hospital in the Swiss Alps, dreamed up by physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner around the turn of the 1900s. He was a little ahead of his time – I wonder what he would think of today’s raw food movement and versions of his muesli featuring heavily on cafe menus around the world. He also banned coffee and chocolate, however – not such a fan of that idea.

I’ve always been a morning person. My body clock seems to have been permanently scarred by years and years of 5am starts for swim training – groggily crawling out of bed, eyes still half closed, a sleepy trip to the pool and the abrupt shock of cold water. The smell of chlorine and the beep of an alarm still brings it back – a little jolt of familiarity and nostalgia mixed with a hint of relief at the reminder that it is no longer a six-mornings-a-week training thing, and more of a whenever-I-want-to-enjoyment thing. It does mean my brain is now wired for early wake-ups. Even after a late night, or a full on week of university, sleep is frustratingly elusive after about 730am. WHY?!?

Breakfast is never optional. It’s a little monotonous, though – barring the odd weekend brunch out or french toast in, it has been cereal + yoghurt + fruit as far back as I can remember. How do we not get bored of it? I’m almost positive that if I ate the same thing for lunch or dinner for even a week I wouldn’t want to touch it again for a while, yet breakfast is somehow exempt. Growing up it was always a mission to time my breakfast and shower to ensure the newspaper would be available. With six of us it wasn’t always possible, though the boys always went for the sports section and Mum was nice enough to settle for any part (or maybe she just couldn’t be bothered having a child reading over her shoulder, just waiting for her to be finished). Just Right for years, then a swap to Sultana Bran after realised that my serving of the former contained something like 15 teaspoons of sugar (oops), topped with kiwifruit, pineapple and whatever else is in season. No milk, because plain milk freaks me out (I know, I know – the story goes that as soon as Mum tried to swap me from a bottle to drinking milk from a glass, my stubborn toddler self never touched it again). Not porridge, because it was always too mushy and milky.  I always assumed I wouldn’t like overnight oats for the same reason – cold, milky, oaty, plain, not sweet enough…you name it. 

It proved the ultimate cliche that you should always give something a chance before judging it too critically – because bircher has grown on me. It’s overtaken any other. And through some experimentation and research, this is my go-to, mix-up-the-night-before recipe. Thick natural or greek yogurt is essential for a creamy texture, grated granny smith apple adds texture and a tangy sweetness, and the cinnamon brings everything together. The night in the fridge softens the oats and thickens the mixture, ready to be topped with extra yogurt and lots of fruit in the morning.

This brulee bircher muesli with ginger poached pear is my favourite version thus far, with the pear & tamarillos poached in a cinnamon & ginger honey syrup.  If you haven’t heard of tamarillos, they are a winter fruit widely available in New Zealand (thought I have no idea about other parts of the world). Though mouth-puckeringly sour when raw, a quick 6 minute poach leaves them still tangy, but not so painfully acidic. Top the bircher with the reduced spiced fruit syrup and extra nuts and seeds for crunch, then if you’re treating yourself on the weekend, grab a blow-torch and brulee the yogurt. It’s that satisfying sugary crackle and crunch of creme brulee –  but at breakfast time.

BREAKFAST GOALS, you guys.

I change up the bircher toppings all the time though – other ideas are:

• Caramelised banana
• Roast or poached stone fruit
• Sauteed apple in a teaspoon of butter, cinnamon & a drizzle of maple syrup
• Poached rhubarb 
• Mango & pineapple (use coconut yogurt for extra tropical flavour)

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