Rhubarb, strawberry & kaffir lime louise cake – fragrant, tropical and tart, and topped with a cloud of meringue.  Jump to Recipe 

We survived! Exams happened, and I’m somehow out the other side. Possibly a little anti-climatic – all that build-up, stress and study is suddenly over, caput, finito, never to be seen again (at least for a few years – let’s not think about specialty exams just yet).  The kitchen table became the place where I spent most of the day, surrounded by bits of refill paper scrawled with blue and purple notes, stacks of flashcards, a ticking pomodoro timer (have you tried it?), and my phone as far away from me as possible – way too tempting to have an old instagram scroll if it was in the same room. Usually an empty bowl, formerly filled with peanut butter smeared apple, because studying (or boredom? both?) makes me constantly hungry.

Following the blurred week of exams and another week spent packing up and moving out of my flat in Melbourne, I’m now back in Auckland for the summer.  Considering I moved to Melbourne four years ago with 2 suitcases, I seem to have accumulated a scary amount of “stuff” – channeling Marie Kondo in a wardrobe cull was surprisingly satisfying. Plus half of my (very overweight) baggage on the way back was made up of cookbooks, props, ceramics and camera equipment…so I’ll just blame it on this blog.

This strawberry, rhubarb, and kaffir lime Louise cake was one of the first things I baked after exams. I was given Ottolenghi’s Sweet for my 21st birthday by the girls I live with during exam period (actually had an exam ON my birthday this year…ugh), and had been intermittently flicking through while firmly reminding/convincing myself I was not allowed to bake until exams were over. This cake jumped out immediately (if you’ve got a copy of Sweet, you’ll know what I mean). Louise cake originates in New Zealand – albeit a much flatter, less impressive version – and I’ve grown up making it myself and seeing it in cafes at home. The original is a classic ‘fill the baking tins’ kind of slice, with a buttery shortbread-like base topped with raspberry jam and a thinner coconut laced meringue topping.

I made a few changes to adapt the cake to our Southern hemisphere spring. The called-for plums are not currently in season, and I’d been hanging out to combine fresh strawberries with the fragrance of kaffir lime for a while. The kaffir lime leaves are finely chopped and folded through the cake base, topped with tender, tart rhubarb and strawberries before a final cloud of meringue. It’s easier than it looks, and would make for an impressive contribution to an afternoon tea party. In a few short months, I’ll be changing up the fruit – peaches and blackberries, apricots and saffron, cherries and pistachios. Enjoy!

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Strawberry, Rhubarb & Pistachio Bars – crisp, buttery shortbread base topped with pistachio paste and covered with tangy, sweet rhubarb and strawberries.  Jump to Recipe 

Following last week’s epic birthday cake, I thought a recipe a little less time and energy intensive was necessary this week – something that doesn’t take a day of planning and multiple components of cake layers, buttercream, lemon curd, meringue, cooking time, decoration time… instead, something you might make quickly on the morning you have friends over for coffee, for an easy dessert, or just to fill the tins for weekday baking. If you are anything like me, morning tea coffee doesn’t feel quite complete without something sweet alongside it.

Enter these strawberry, rhubarb & pistachio bars. Adapted from last summer’s apricot version (and one of the first recipes I posted here!), I remember being surprised at just how good the pistachio frangipane was when coupled with fresh apricots, a sweet nutty paste that is quite transformed from raw pistachios still tucked in their shell. However, apricot season hasn’t quite got underway yet, and with the abundance of strawberries around here it seemed the obvious replacement.

It really worked. A crisp, buttery shortbread-like base is topped with pistachio paste and covered with tangy, sweet rhubarb and strawberries, with the time in the oven bringing out the ripe, oozy fruit juices and bright pink colour.

All the decadent Thanksgiving recipes around lately had me feeling a little out of it here in New Zealand, where it isn’t celebrated and we are heading into hot and humid summer weather – so I figure this slice skips straight into Christmas colours, all green and red and celebratory. If you are in the Northern hemisphere, you could try replacing the strawberries with a different fruit, but be careful with frozen berries as they might be too juicy/liquidy for the base. You could also change up the type of nut – I imagine a walnut paste with caramelized apples and caramel sauce drizzled over (coupled with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, of course!) would go down pretty well. Or a hazelnut base with chocolate chips and roast pears scattered on top for a nutella-like combo…

It does look its best on the day it is made, covered in a dusting of icing sugar and sliced warm, but kept in the fridge it lasts a while. Best of all, all the work is done by a food processor or blender, meaning limited dishes and less than half an hour prep time.

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Mini Oat-Crusted Strawberry, Rhubarb & Maple Galettes – flaky, sweet pastry with a crunchy oat topping, tangy maple-infused rhubarb and summery strawberries.  Jump to Recipe 

So here’s the thing.

Today’s post is going to be a little short. The past week (and the coming two weeks) have been spent learning neuroanatomy and physiology – and in all this thinking about people’s brains, the function of my own seems to have deteriorated slightly.

At least, it feels like it. Maybe it is just due to trying to cram too much information in there in a short time, like an overfull balloon about to pop. And probably a little bit because it is five o’clock on a Sunday evening. And achieving anything on a Sunday evening seems about 10000x more difficult than any other time during the week, unless it involves eating chocolately desserts, which I am all about. Yes, an easy chocolate self-saucing pudding with melting vanilla ice cream on a lazy Sunday night would go down extremely well.

Getting back into work mode after a week on holiday is always a challenge too – our brains seem to switch off a little and adjust to the minimal activity levels, so on arriving back everything is just a little more tiring than usual, taking a bit longer and a bit more effort. Does anyone else find that?

Anyway. These mini oat-crusted strawberry, rhubarb and maple galettes are pretty bomb too. I was inspired by Betty’s gorgeous plum galette over at le jus d’orange, but since it is spring over here in Australia, not autumn, I changed it up a bit, swapping the plums for a mix of strawberries and rhubarb while keeping the maple flavours and that textural oat crust. Being in a tiny little holiday kitchen, I also made them mini so the pie crust was easier to handle and I could bake 4 at a time in the tiny oven! It does actually make six, but the other two went in the oven later.

It ends up like this. Spoonfuls of flaky, crunchy edged pastry with a crisp, sweet oat topping and warm, tender chunks of maple infused tangy rhubarb, balanced by its summery strawberry counterpart. It is tied together by creamy, cold vanilla-bean ice cream, melting in rivulets through the cracks of the baked fruit and pie crust. And you get your own little galette all to yourself. You can’t really say no to that.

By the time I made these it was late in the afternoon, and evening when I finally photographed the finished product. To compensate for the dim lighting inside, I shifted out onto the deck – I don’t know what anyone on the street or the neighbours thought of the crazy girl climbing on chairs with a camera in hand to get overhead shots. Seriously, sometimes when I photograph things I must look completely ridiculous. It was worth it, though.

The galettes are a perfect summer dessert, best eaten outside on warm evenings after a day of activity (they are also tops eaten at any other time, don’t limit yourself there). Surprisingly easy to put together, most of the components are a ‘mix in a bowl’ type of deal – and you don’t even have to worry about lining a pie tin. Galettes are meant to be rustic, so any little tears or misshapen crimps are just part of the appeal.

And also, it’s fruit, right? So left overs can be eaten the next morning for breakfast, or morning tea. Totally okay in my books.

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Golden-brown brioche french toast rest on a thick smear of vanilla bean creme patisserie, topped with citrus roasted rhubarb and roughly chopped pistachios. Jump to Recipe 

Just realised that this is my second week of a sweet breakfast recipe post… hope you don’t mind!

I don’t, but sweet breakfasts are one of my favourite meal categories – french toast, pancakes, brioche, chia puddings, you name it, I’m there (except maybe porridge – but would you class that as sweet?). Cafe trips leave me as indecisive as if I was just asked to make a life or death decision (maybe not quite, but close!), when really I just don’t know whether I want to order the healthy green breakfast with eggs and avocado or the decadent menu option. I often end up ordering both, or forcing my breakfast partner(s) to share with me.. A bad habit to get into, but an irrational fear of missing out on one or the other leaves me torn and completely unable to choose without leaving with serious menu regrets.

It’s strange, as indecisiveness isn’t a problem in other aspects of life – it is just when it comes to food. Whether I am trying to choose what cake to make on the weekend, what to order at a restaurant or what to make for dinner, decisions seem to take much longer and significantly more thought than they realistically should. Part of the problem currently is that I am unable to cook at college, so as soon as I go home I try to fit all my cooking and baking into a week or two of frantic time in the kitchen. Mid-semester break is coming up the week after next, and I currently have ideas spanning twenty or thirty dishes – impossible to fit into an eight day period, but am seriously struggling to choose – because really, how can you say that crumpets are more worthwhile than hotcakes, that strawberry-rhubarb bars are better than lemon-olive oil-sea salt bars, or that an espresso mascarpone banana bread should be prioritised over flaky lemon blueberry scones?

Seriously struggling, I tell you. So if you have any preferences or tips (that don’t include drawing recipes out of a hat…), please let me know!

But back to the recipe. It is based on a dish at a cafe called Three Bags Full that I recreated at home, as getting on a plane to experience it again right when I wanted it was probably a little excessive. The slabs of golden-brown brioche french toast rest on a thick smear of vanilla bean creme patisserie and are topped with citrus roasted rhubarb and roughly chopped pistachios. A partnership of sweet creme patisserie, hot french toast straight from the pan and tart stalks of spring rhubarb with extra nuttiness for texture, it is something I could eat again, and again, and again.

Although the activity levels in our house are such that it is a rarity for everyone to be around on a weekend morning for a lazy midmorning breakfast, I feel like this french toast would be ideal for that situation. It did work well even for different timed meals though, as the creme patisserie and rhubarb can be made well ahead and the french toast just cooked as required. The recipe will make more rhubarb (and possibly more creme patisserie) than you need, but no worries – either make french toast again to use it up, add the rhubarb to your muesli the next day, have it for dessert with ice cream.. I could go on, but the options are limitless! The recipe is also easy to scale up for more people – just use more eggs and milk to dip the french toast in and make a double batch of creme patisserie.

For the brioche loaf, I made my own the night before, left it out to get slightly stale and then used it for the next two days of french toast making – it was absolutely perfect, so if you have time, I would highly recommend Thalia Ho’s recipe (from Butter & Brioche) for brioche loaves. You could also buy a loaf of brioche, challah or similar enriched sweet bread to use – it creates such a different french toast than using a white french baguette or white loaf.

I would also love to try brûléeing the top of the french toast straight after it comes out of the pan with a sprinkle of extra sugar and a blowtorch for extra crispy sugary edges, but that will have to wait until next time!

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Slightly flaky, buttery sweet pastry is filled with soft almond frangipane, rhubarb infused with orange and vanilla, raspberries and nutty almond praline.  Jump to Recipe 

This is your next dinner party dessert. Or your next celebratory ‘I made it through the day’ dessert. Or simply just an ‘I feel like dessert’ dessert. Actually, this tart shouldn’t just be limited to dessert – make it for morning tea, afternoon tea, breakfast…in my opinion, it is appropriate anytime, any day (and that’s all that matters, right?!).

Rhubarb is one of my favourite vegetables: almost inedible raw, a short time in the oven transforms the stringy stalks into tangy, tart yet sweet bites that go perfectly with just about anything – use it with your regular muesli or porridge, your indulgent weekend pancakes or french toast, have it on crumpets, make it into a jam, fold through a cake or muffins, make it into a fruity crumble topped with melting vanilla ice cream, have it plain with ice cream, heck, make rhubarb ice cream (or rhubarb and roasted pear ice cream à la Gelato Messina – I can vouch for it!)… the list goes on. As you can probably tell, I have been on a bit of a rhubarb kick lately and have used it in a myriad of ways, but this rhubarb and raspberry frangipane tart remains one of the best (there is also a recipe for Rhubarb Brioche French Toast with Cream Patisserie coming…but more about that in the next few weeks!).

Here, the rhubarb is baked briefly in the oven, gently infusing it with orange zest and vanilla bean for layers of flavour that shine through in the end product. The ultra-short and buttery sweet pastry is filled with soft almond frangipane, the aforementioned rhubarb and a couple of handfuls of raspberries for extra sharpness (and they just go so perfectly with rhubarb, don’t you think?). The frangipane is sturdy enough to hold up the juiciness of the rhubarb and raspberries, while the almond praline topping adds extra nutty crunchiness. It is works perfectly for dessert topped with a scoop of ice cream and extra cooking syrup from the rhubarb (don’t throw it out!), and left-overs are devoured any old time of day – it doesn’t normally last very long in our house.

The tart has been a work in progress: I have battled with the cooking time, frangipane, the pastry and the best way of filling it on and off for the past couple of years, but over the holidays decided that I was going to get it right (more on that afternoon here). It finally worked just as I wanted – and the inspiration and recipe development has come from many sources, including an adapted pastry from Little & Friday, the almond praline topping from From the Kitchen, and the rhubarb and frangipane recipe adapted from The Engine Room.

Best of all, it doesn’t require blind-baking, so you just line the tart tin with the pastry, refrigerate it for half-an-hour while you make the frangipane paste, fill the tin, top with the berries and rhubarb and pop straight in the oven. The almond praline is sprinkled over the top roughly half way through the baking time as it cooks much more quickly than the tart itself. It does make extra rhubarb, which you can serve alongside the tart with extra cooking syrup, and you are likely to end up with a bit of spare pastry – I made another mini-tart but you can do whatever you like with it!

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