For the past couple of weeks I’ve been very busy juggling work and planning for a special dinner that finally took place on Monday 27th February.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Toys Collective, it comprises a group of young chefs who originally banded together to promote the new wave of industry peers by means of thematic dinners thrown throughout the year.

When invited to participate in their latest dinner, I initially declined. Having an all-female themed event seemed a bit too gimmicky. Personally, I’ve never felt the need to make any distinction between males and females in commercial kitchens. There is nothing a guy can do in a kitchen that a girl can’t and gender has never been an issue in any place I’ve worked. (This of course doesn’t answer the big question people always ask about why there are so few well known female chefs in our industry. I don’t pretend to know the reason for that, but I have noticed one thing based on people I’ve had the opportunity to work with. Women chefs who succeed do so because they cook not so much with ego but with great inner strength. Whether that means you need a bigger ego to be noticed, or to surpass greatness, I don’t know.)

Mind you I’m also one of those crazies who thinks girls-only “Kitchen Teas” and baby showers are a bit archaic. Which probably explains why I hardly ever get invited to any. So I said no to the dinner. But the line up of those who had already signed on included some people I really wanted to work with, so I ended up saying yes.

And it was a heck of a ride.

Along the way, I also learned a lot about myself. The other pastry girls will deny this now, but once Stockholm Syndrome sets in, I know they’ll miss the many emails I tortured them with during our planning stage. Of course everyone else cares about menu wording, the right kind of mason jar, weight of the cheese course, style of cutlery and exact width of paper being laid on the tables. Of course they do.

The bread which formed part of the first course was developed by Julie. It was a light brioche style pull-apart loaf, that fitted in with the ‘shared table’ brief we were given. Here I’ve adapted the recipe to suit my preferences. One of my personal policies is to always use brown butter where possible. The savoury yeast flakes are completely optional. They boost the umami flavour of the loaf, but you can easily leave them out altogether, or substitute with a spice or some grated cheese. This bread was served alongside bone marrow butter set into bone marrow, crispy pigs heads, a lobster consomme and an edible garden of vegetables, herbs and flowers.

Pull-apart brown butter brioche :
(based on a recipe by Julie Niland)

10g dried yeast
240g skim milk, at room temperature
60g water, at room temperature

570g plain flour
10g sea salt
85g rapadura sugar
2 eggs
150g unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature

for assembly :
4 tablespoons browned butter, melted
2-3 tablespoons savoury yeast flakes (found in health food stores; also known as nutritional yeast flakes)

Combine the yeast with the milk and water in a bowl. Leave aside for 5 minutes.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook attached, add the flour, salt and sugar, followed by the yeast mixture and the eggs. Knead until the dough is smooth, then gradually incorporate the diced butter, kneading well between each addition. Once all the butter has been incorporated, stop the mixer, remove the dough and place it in a large, greased bowl. Cover with cling film and chill overnight.

The next day, ease the dough out of the bowl. Dust the bench top lightly with flour and roll the dough out into a long rectangle about 1cm thick. Brush the dough with browned butter and sprinkle with the yeast flakes. Cut the dough into thirds lengthways. Stack the strips of dough together. Cut down the stacked dough to create smaller stacks of dough that are roughly 3/4 the height of a 9 1/2 inch x 5 1/2 inch loaf tin. There’s a good pictorial explanation of how to create this pull-apart effect here. Arrange the small stacks in the greased tin. Cover loosely with cling film and allow to prove until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 195’C. Brush the top of the loaf with egg wash and bake for 15 minutes, then for a further 15 minutes at 175’C.

Ever since we moved into an apartment together and I insisted on buying the smallest fridge-freezer in the entire kitchen appliance store as some sort of bizarre money-saving measure, I’ve been regretting winning the argument. (I’m convinced there’s a future blog post just waiting to be written on the subject of the strange arguments he lets me win, even when he knows I’m wrong).

Turns out, there’s no such thing as a fridge or freezer that’s too big. Not when you can stuff it with leftover bits of pastry, excess cookie dough and more than one flavour of ice-cream. Or perhaps it’s a mixed blessing that I had to evict an unbaked tart case from the freezer the other day, to make room for a bag of green chillies and a few wilting stalks of lemongrass.

Our fast and easy dessert that evening was this tart, filled with a mixture of pantry ingredients. Speculoos is one of my favourite cookies that I put in almost anything I can get away with. If you don’t have any, try the same recipe with gingersnaps or chocolate cookies. I’m thinking a Tim Tam version of this tart might have to be the next thing I tackle on my to-bake list.

Now if only there was another spare tart case in the freezer that needed to be used..

Chocolate Speculoos Tart :

125g butter
100g rapadura sugar or natural cane sugar
2 medium eggs
20g cocoa powder
125g speculoos, crushed or blitzed in the food processor
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of sea salt
75g dark chocolate chips

1 x 23cm tart tin lined with sweet shortcrust pastry, unbaked

Preheat the oven to 170’C.

In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well. Fold in the speculoos crumbs, cocoa powder, cinnamon and salt, followed by the chocolate chips. Spread the mixture evenly on top of the shortcrust pastry. Bake for about 30 minutes until the pastry is golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack before removing the tart from the tin. Serve warm or at room temperature with cinnamon whipped cream, sweetened yogurt or vanilla ice-cream.

After many months of living the good life, the well has finally run dry and I’m back working again. I’ve taken up a part time job with a boss I’ve worked for in the past. The pastry section is just a tiny blip in a mind-boggling maze of a kitchen and is lacking many typical pieces of dessert equipment, so I’ve submitted a few shopping requests for consideration. If they are denied, I think it’ll be interesting to work under these new constraints anyway.

On a side note, I’ve decided to publish less recipes, if any, on my blog from now on. The question of copyright was brought up recently and I’ve realised that I should stick wholly to sharing recipes that are completely my own.

For the record, some of my all-time favourite cookbook authors are Claire Clark, David Lebovitz, Alice Medrich, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Joanne Chang and Belinda Jeffery. I bake incessantly from their amazing books and am grateful that so far they have never had issue with their recipes being quoted on blogs.

Thank you.