I’ve been putting off writing this post because I had promised to write about the answer to the second question my Optometrist asked me :

2) What is your all-time favourite thing to cook

Truth is, I didn’t have an answer for him then, and I don’t really have an answer now. He simply couldn’t believe that I didn’t have a favourite dish. Pretend, he said, that it’s a perfect Saturday afternoon and you’re about to watch the football (he is a Wolves fan, who incidentally have been promoted to the Premier League). The big question is, what is your favourite thing to cook under these circumstances?

Truth also is, that I would bake, because in reality, it would be Sunday afternoon before we got the football here, and usually on Sunday afternoons we have coffee and a bit of cake or a handful of freshly baked cookies. We would sit there picking crumbs off our shirts, while cheering or shouting at the tv.

We’d then spend the rest of the day lazing around, making plans to go cycling but never following through with it. I would slink back into the kitchen again, to bake something. By sundown, no cycling would have been undertaken whatsoever, and dinner would either be bubbling in a pot on the stove, or already laid out on the table. Our dinners rarely feature the same thing twice. I like trying out new recipes or making things up according to what I happen to have at hand. Which explains why I don’t have a ‘signature’ dish, as they call it.

I don’t think I’ve ever made the same dessert twice for B either. Even if it’s just a brownie with some ice-cream, the brownie will be from a recipe I hadn’t yet tried. I dreamt up the pineapple tart dessert above while I was making small pineapple tarts. Making a larger version was my impatient attempt at trying to speed up the whole process. Yes, stuffing each individual pastry is incredibly fiddly and it really tests your endurance, but the end result is definitely worth it.

The large tart contains pineapple jam and a layer of chamomile custard which I made recently after buying a chamomile plant from the markets. This plant (with a scent reminiscent of green apples and pineapple), and a potted lemon verbena, are the latest fragrant additions to my balcony garden. I had to denude the chamomile of all its sweet white flowers in order to make the custard – a recipe based on David Everitt-Matthias’ recipe for a chamomile cream. If you’re interested in making a similar tart, use the cream recipe below, omitting the gelatine and double cream. Serve the tart warm, with a dollop of plain cream or lemon verbena flavoured cream.

(If you can’t be bothered making anything as fussy looking as that, stick to the little pineapple tarts – the recipe by Pichet Ong is provided below (he calls them turnovers). For the pineapple filling, I followed Arfi’s recipe. If you can’t get a hold of fresh pineapple, you can also used the tinned kind. There’s a good recipe for it here, though I would advise erring on the side of caution and starting with less sugar than you think you need, and adjusting the sweetness later.)

Pichet Ong’s Caramelised Pineapple Turnovers:
(from the Sweet Spot by Pichet Ong)

for the caramelised pineapple filling :
2 small pineapples, peeled, cored, and finely diced
180g crushed palm sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1/8 teaspoon salt

for the pastry dough :
300g plain flour
50g custard powder
1 tablespoon dried milk powder
180g unsalted butter, at room temperature
70g icing sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg

to glaze:
3 large egg yolks, beaten
whole cloves (optional)

To make the pineapple filling : Put all of the ingredients into a medium saucepan, set over low heat, and cook, stirring occasinally, until the sugar has dissovled and all the liquid has evaporated, about 45 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or as long as overnight.

To make the dough : Sift the flour, custard powder, and dried milk together and set aside. Put the butter, icing sugar and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until the mixture is light and creamy, about 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, add the flour mixture, and mix until incorporated. Add the egg and mix just until the dough comes together; it will be quite sticky. Form the mixture into a ball, press it into a 1-inch-thick disk, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Chill until firm, at least 2 hours, or as long as overnight.

Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Unwrap the chilled dough and form it into 1-inch balls. Using your fingertips, press one ball into a thin 3-inch disk. Put 1 tablespoon of the pineapple filling in the center of the dough circle, fold over to make a half-moon, and pinch the edges together to seal. Twist off any excess dough, press and gently roll the half-moon shape into a ball. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling. Alternatively, roll the whole disk of dough out on a lightly floured surface to a 1/8-inch thickness, cut out 3-inch circles with a cookie or biscuit cutter, and fill and shape them. Put the filled balls 1 inch apart on the baking sheets, and chill until firm, about 15 minutes.

To bake, preheat the oven to 175’C. Brush the balls with the egg yolks and stick a clove, if desired, in the centre of each. Bake until golden, about 12 minutes. Cool completely on a rack before serving.

Chamomile cream :
(from Dessert by David Everitt-Matthias)

450ml milk
30g fresh chamomile flowers
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
75g caster sugar
50g cornflour
100g unsalted butter, diced
1 1/2 gelatine leaves
30ml lemon juice [I used yuzu]
125ml double cream, whipped

Put the milk and chamomile in a heavy-based saucepan and bring to the boil. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, egg yolk, sugar and cornflour together. Gradually pour in the milk, whisking to combine, then return the mixture to the pan and cook over a medium heat for 4 – 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until thick. Remove from the heat, place to one side to cool a little, then stir in the butter bit by bit until it has melted. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 5 minutes until soft and pliable. Squeeze out all the water, add the gelatine to the chamomile mixture and stir until dissolved. Stir in the yuzu juice.

Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl. Cover the surface with cling film and leave to cool. Fold in the double cream and store in the fridge until needed.

(clockwise, from top left corner : chocolate macaron (a strawberry crumble tart hiding underneath), cannele, chocolate brownie, ginger ninja cookie, another cannele)

I was going to tell you about the glorious twice-bitten cannele I had sitting in front of me. Another two bites later however, and it’s suddenly all gone. Caramelised on the outside, custardy on the inside. The stuff deep sighs and satisfied smiles are made from. Today I tried to convince my Wednesday lunch buddy to make the trip to Newtown to visit Christopher The’s new shop, Black Star Pastry. She was reluctant to spend a portion of her precious lunch hour on a train, so we settled on sandwiches and coffee from Luneburger before I said goodbye to her and hello to Newtown and those canneles.

I read about his shop in Good Living yesterday (ah, so that’s what he’s been up to!), and what got me really excited was spotting the little canneles at the bottom right hand corner of the picture accompanying the blurb. In case you’re wondering what the fuss is all about, well, I can’t remember the last time I saw a cannele in a shop in Sydney. The last cannele I had was in Tokyo. We stumbled across a stall selling vanilla and chocolate versions, bought some even though we weren’t hungry, and later were filled with regret at not having bought more. So yes, you could attribute part of their appeal, to their elusiveness. I have never attempted making them myself, and perhaps it’s about time I did!

In the meantime, I think everyone should visit Black Star Pastry. It’s a small shop located on Australia Street, right next to Oscillate Wildly. It has a simple, rustic, pared back (budget friendly) set up that reminds me of sixsevenate in Chippendale, when George Sinclair and Lorraine Godsmark were running the place. I worked with them for about a year, and always longed for a similar sort of cafe/pastry shop in my own neighbourhood. The kind of place you could go to and be assured of decent coffee, a quality pastry or two, and friendly, personable service.

Black Star has the advantage of being in a good location (even if someone apparently told them that the shop was cursed), opposite the train station. Their pastries are reasonably priced and very reasonably sized as well. I like small bites with coffee, and am definitely going back next week to have something savoury, this time with my Wednesday lunch buddy in tow.

Black Star Pastry
277 Australia St
Newtown 2042.

Also inspired by my love of small things, I made these burnt orange and elderflower creams based on a dish by Dan Hunter, which appeared in the Sept/Oct 2008 edition of V.EAT. The pineapple and macadamia polvoron are his recipes, but I based the cream recipe on another one I’ve used before. The original intention was to make passionfruit flavoured creams. I recently ate a passionfruit brulee that was out of this world – and this is coming from someone who isn’t usually terribly fussed about brulees (or passionfruit, for that matter). But passionfruit brulees certainly work for me. Passionfruits were horribly expensive that day, so I used orange juice and elderflower cordial instead. Surprisingly, the end result was quite passionfruit-like!

This is a dish that could easily be converted into a dessert canape, especially if like me, you love the shape of small things. 🙂

Come down from the mountain, you have been gone too long
The spring is upon us, follow my only song
Settle down with me by the fire of my yearning
You should come back home, back on your own now

The world is alive now, in and outside our home
You run through the forest, settle before the sun
Darling, I can barely remember you beside me
You should come back home, back on your own now

–Ragged Wood, Fleet Foxes

He’s away, and now I’m in the doldrums.

While he’s in Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing, I read books distractedly, get a haircut^*, put Fleet Foxes on repeat, have dinner with friends. It feels like a weekend spent in an alien vessel. At night as I lie in bed, his pillow silently bares its grey and white teeth, daring me to venture closer. I stick to the far end of my corner. If this were a boat, the balance would have long tipped me into the water. The deep water of sleep. But sleep is light, and the telephone is sulking. The MythTV box is sullen; it won’t play what I want to watch. At this, I flee into the kitchen, and devise a dessert for 2 to beckon him home with.

I’ve always wanted to make an ice-cream sphere, and this one was going to be Cherry Ripe inspired, but cherries aren’t in season yet, so when they are, I might have to revisit that idea.

But for now I don’t want to wait, so this one is vanilla and elderflower flavoured, with a heart of raspberry sorbet. Raspberry and elderflower sauces stroke the plate. Edible flowers from my balcony complete the picture, reminding me that it really is Spring.

So now I wait, and count down the days until he finally returns and we can share this.

(^* My hairdresser told me he used to call a souffle, “soffle”, to which I replied that I wished he hadn’t told that to me just as he had the scissors right up against the side of my face, because I had to do everything I could to stop from laughing. Funny, tall, dark, handsome and SINGLE, ladies! Anyway, I love the new cut. I feel like Anna Wintour, minus the glamorous wardrobe and extra large sunglasses. I took a picture to show B, which I have also included on my About page. Unfortunately, you can’t actually see the hair because I’ve cropped the picture for the sake of anonymity.)