Babka III

May 9, 2026 

   

 

Babka is still open on Brunswick St for twenty-years-on coverage, though we've missed the cafe's founder by about 3 years. It seems to have lost most of the Eastern European features it was once known for:  borscht, potato dumplings, and - most devastatingly for me - the blintzes. Instead there's the more predictable Aussie cafe run of chilli scrambled eggs, smashed avo, chicken and avocado toasties, and egg and bacon rolls. (There are no markings for vegans or gluten-free folks, and I wouldn't especially recommend the menu to either.)

   

 

The overflowing sweets cabinet still reigns, and there were plenty of customers queuing for takeaway coffee, bread and baked sweets, rather than the sit-down menu.

 

   

 

Michael ordered the aforementioned chilli scramble ($21.50), a likeable, decently proportioned plate with a choice of bread (sourdough here), fresh herbs, chilli slices, grated cheese and a house-made chilli sauce from yesteryear.

 

   

 

Blintzless, I pivoted to French toast ($21.50). I was perfectly happy with one slice - it was nicely battered without being too eggy. The accompanying 'fresh fruits' were mostly tasteless strawberries, and the scoop of mascarpone was great. I didn't need any of the maple syrup on offer. 

 

   

 

We picked out a lil' something from the dessert case to take home for later. Michael rated his plum frangipane tart ($9) highly. I was even happier with the lemon tart ($9) - while I though the pastry was average, the lemon filling was exceptional, with a gorgeous wafer-thin crust of burnt sugar.

 

   

 

The Babka menu clearly isn't what it once was, but there's still a comfort to the place. The classic cafe fit-out feels just right. We were perched near the coffee machine and noticed the manager cheerfully chatting with everyone, with many clearly being regulars. The customers spanned generations and Brunswick St subcultures. I'm glad Babka has found a form it can sustain. 

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You can read about one, two of our previous visits to Babka. Since then, it's received generally positive reviews on Multicultural Melbourne, Almost Always Ravenous, Spoonful of Sugar, and Vanilla Slice (Snot) Blog.

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Babka

358 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 

9416 0091 

menu: one, two 

instagram page 

 

Accessibility: There is a step up on entry and a crowded interior. Furniture is densely arranged regular height small tables and backed chairs. We ordered and paid at a low counter. We didn't visit the toilets. 

Miso caramel apple pies

June 1, 2025

   

For Michael's birthday this year, his mum gave him a copy of The Australian Women's Weekly The Pie Maker Volume 2, a recipe book full of cute, single-serve pastries. I offered to make his pick of the recipes as a little home celebration on the weekend following his birthday. Apple pie has long been a favourite of Michael's so I wasn't surprised that he chose the miso caramel-garnished version in this book.

This was a fun little combination, very different to my go-to apple pie recipe. It started with frozen shortcrust pastry but I preferred to use puff, simply quartering the sheet and easing each square into a pie dish without trimming it. I'd never before noticed canned pie apple at the supermarket but we tracked it down and it was an easy filling, spiced up with ginger, cinnamon and miso. On top there's an elegant fan of apple slices; the recipe reckons that each pie can support half an apple but I thought a quarter was a better fit. The recipe's designed for a dedicated pie maker, but these ones were just as effectively baked in the oven.

Finally, there's miso-spiked top'n'fill caramel to drizzle over the top (and if you're sensible, a scoop of icecream on the side). It's a delicious little package, fit for a birthday.

   

As a post-script, here's Henry, the newest member of our household. He's as fond of human food as he is his own, and he stared longingly at these pies throughout their assembly.

Miso caramel apple pies

(slightly adapted from a recipe in
The Australian Women's Weekly The Pie Maker Volume 2)

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

1 tablespoon white miso

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

385g can pie apple slices

1 red apple

miso caramel

1/2 cup canned caramel top'n'fill

2 tablespoons white miso

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line four single-serve pie dishes with paper; I just used squares of paper and didn't worry too much about gaps. Cut the pastry into four squares of equal area and gently fit them into the pie dishes. Add some paper/pie weights and pre-bake the pastry for up to 10 minutes, until the pastry corners are just going golden.

Mix together the miso, 2 tablespoons of the sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of the cinnamon, and the ginger in a medium bowl. Fold in the canned apple. When the pastry is ready, remove any pie weights and divide this mixture evenly into the four pie dishes.

Remove the core from the apple and slice it into thin wedges. Arrange the slices decoratively across the pies. Sprinkle over the remaining cinnamon and sugar. Bake until the pastry is golden brown but not burnt, about 10-15 minutes.

While the pies are baking, transfer the top'n'fill to a microwave-safe bowl and heat for about 40 seconds. Whisk in the miso until smooth.

Serve the pies warm, generously drizzled with the miso caramel, with a scoop of icecream on the side.

Beit Siti

June 1, 2025

   

I've been following Beit Siti on instagram for quite a while, and immediately put their cafe on my wishlist when its opening was announced in late May. The name means "grandmother's home" in Arabic, and the business pays homage to the Palestinian roots of founder Rahaf Al Khatib.

They're starting slowly and building up. When we arrived at lunch time on a Sunday, the display cabinet was about half sold-out. I missed out on a zaatar and cheese croissant but we happily made do with the alternatives (clockwise from top left): a savoury labaneh croissant ($12), a Danish spread with strawberry jam, dolloped with labaneh and garnished with pomegranate seeds and dill ($10), and a Musakahn Danish of confit onion, sumac and chickpeas ($10). The pastry was beautiful and the fillings so well composed.

   

Beit Siti post what they've got coming up each morning in their instagram stories: I've spotted labaneh cheesecake brownies, several flavours of focaccia, carrot and walnut cake, and mudjaddarah with a vegan option recently! I'd highly recommend stopping in and taking a chance on whatever's in store.

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Beit Siti

150 Bell St, Coburg

https://www.beitsiti.com/

Accessibility: Beit Siti has a ramp on entry. Furniture is mostly regular-height tables and backed chairs at medium spacing (though check out the lovely chaise lounge in the top photo!). We noticed that a high chair was available. We ordered and paid at a regular-height counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Pickles Milk Bar II

April 12, 2024

   

I've become a regular visitor to Pickles Milk Bar, often cycling down to pick up a sandwich on a work-from-home lunch break. On my most recent trip I had a flexible day on my own and decided to eat in and try a not-so-cycle-friendly shake. The soy milk-based miso caramel shake ($10) was thick, cold and super sweet - I didn't pick up on any miso nuance. Meanwhile, the sausage roll ($7) was a sturdy fellow filled with well-seasoned mock meat, and accompanied by a lovely relish. It carves its own space alongside my homemade fave, and the cheaper La Panella roll.

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You can read about our first visit to Pickles here.

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Pickles Milk Bar 

1008 Lygon St, Carlton North 

menu 

instagram account 

Accessibility: There is a small lip on the door and a relatively spacious interior with a low counter. There is a line of bench seating along the wall, with small low tables and low backless stools. We ordered and paid at the counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Cheesy broccoli pasties

May 3, 2022

   

I don't have the appetite for new recipes that I once did. Two pandemic years (not to mention my own recent COVID bout) have oriented me towards plainer comfort foods, and that typically means reliable, repeat recipes. This recipe for broccoli-stuffed pasties, which recently appeared on Green Gourmet Giraffe, offered some reassuring flavours plus an easy pastry technique that I hadn't tried before... a gentle way to try something new.

I didn't check back to the original recipe inspiration on goodfood until writing up this post. It's by Helen Goh, a favoured name in this household due to her book Sweet. Johanna GGG adapted the recipe to add potatoes, and she cooked her vegetables in the microwave rather than using Goh's original blanching approach. I staged out this recipe, asking Michael to pop our broccoli and potatoes into the oven one night early when he already had it on for other reasons. I sautéed the garlic and shallots, too, so that the filling would need minimal extra work on the night that I made the pastry and baked the pasties.  

The novel pastry technique here is the use of boiling water when cold butter, hands and work surfaces are usually the expectation. I assumed the purpose of this was to conveniently melt the big butter chunks, but Goh actually instructs us to do the messy work of rubbing butter into flour anyway. I didn't, and I seemed to get away with it - the heat from the water and some careful work with a wooden spoon got me to the pliable, slighty greasy dough she said I should aim for. My pastry shells were thin and crisp, buttery and crumbly, sturdy from a wholemeal flour boost.

The pasty filling was great - a bit less cheesy than I expected, plenty salty, and bright with lemon. It's not at all vegan, and could be adapted (I'd add lots of nooch!), but an easy alternative is to go straight to Smith & Deli's cheesy broccoli pie recipe instead. I'd estimate that we had twice as much filling as our pastry could hold (perhaps due to the bonus potatoes?), and I'm planning puff pastry pockets and toasties for the leftovers. Michael made Brazilian slaw to eat alongside - it's also a large quantity and lasts for days, so it might see us through all three incarnations of this filling.

   

Cheesy broccoli pasties

(slightly adapted from a recipe on Green Gourmet Giraffe,

where it's credited to goodfood) 

pastry

1 cup plain flour

1 cup wholemeal flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

160g butter, diced

120ml boiling water

filling

400g broccoli, diced

180g potato, peeled and diced

2 teaspoons olive oil

3 shallots, peeled and finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

150g mature cheddar cheese, grated

50g parmesan, grated

1 1/2 tablespoons white miso

zest and juice of one lemon

1 teaspoon salt (I used a herby salt mix)

1 teaspoon pepper

a little milk, for brushing the pastry

To make the pastry, stir together the flours, salt and pepper in a large heatproof bowl. Add in the diced butter, which the original recipe instructs you to rub in by hand (I didn't). Pour the hot water over it all and use a wooden spoon to bring the mixture together into a smooth dough ball (I found that the heat from the water was sufficient to melt the butter). Drape a teatowel over the bowl and set it aside.

Use your preferred method to cook the broccoli and potato under just barely tender: Johanna microwaved hers in some water, Helen Goh used broccoli only and blanched it in salted boiling water, and we popped ours into the oven for 25 minutes the night before alongside a different meal.

Sauté the shallots and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat until soft, about 15 minutes. I wish I had thought to add the miso at this stage, so that it would soften in the heat and distribute evenly through the mixture. In a large bowl, stir together the broccoli, potato and shallot mixture (this is when I actually added the miso). Add the cheeses, lemon zest and juice, salt and pepper, and stir everything together to combine.

Preheat an oven to 200°C and line two baking trays with paper. 

Retrieve the dough and divide it into six balls. Lightly flour a work surface and roll out a pastry ball into a circle 2-3 mm thick. Scoop 1/3 cup of the pasty filling onto one half of the pastry and fold the other half over, crimping the edges securely. Transfer the pasty to a baking tray and repeat with the remaining dough to make six pasties. 

Brush the pasties with a little milk and gently make a couple of incisions in the top of the pastry with a sharp knife. Bake the pasties for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown.

Blueberry & cream cheese crostata

 November 28-29, 2020

   

For the first time in more than a year, our Ottolenghi cooking club met in person and shared food together. In a common pattern for our club, I volunteered for dessert duty early and with enthusiasm. The most appetising, picnic-friendly recipe I could find was this blueberry and cream cheese crostata, which was published online to coincide with Fourth of July festivities.

It starts with a shortcrust pastry that's very heavy on the butter - I found that it absorbed the full quantity of flour without including any of the water in the recipe. I'm a devotee of food-processed shortcrusts but I washed my hands thoroughly and dug in as directed here - it worked out fine, though I'm not confident it was worth the extra messiness. The dough was sticky and challenging to handle on a hot day, and I'm glad it was always intended to look a little rough around the edges.

The shortcrust pastry is topped with a cheesecakey layer, tangy with lots of lime juice and zest, and then macerated and slightly mashed blueberries. I was supposed to hold over a little zest and icing sugar for a last-minute garnish but that was more fuss than I could stretch to, and I don't think any of us missed it.

This crostata was a big success with the club - the pastry was crumbly and toasty, and the cream cheese and blueberry layers played back and forth with richness and freshness, sourness and sweetness. I would definitely make this again, especially for a picnic setting, and I can't help wondering how a vegan adaptation might go.

Blueberry & cream cheese crostata

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi in The Guardian)

pastry

100g plain flour

50g wholemeal flour

30g icing sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

145g butter, cold

65mL water, ice-cold (I didn't use this)

extra flour, for working the dough

milk, for brushing

cream cheese filling

200g cream cheese, at room temperature

50g icing sugar

2 teaspoons cornflour

3-4 limes, to make 1 tablespoon zest and 1 tablespoon juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

blueberry topping

200g blueberries

20g icing sugar

Prepare the pastry dough in a large bowl. Sift together the flours, sugar and salt. Chop the butter into 1.5cm cubes and squish it into the flour. Ottolenghi recommends leaving butter chunks intact, then using the water to bring the dough together. I ended up rubbing the butter through until all of the flour was incorporated, not including any water at all.

Scatter the flour over a work surface and a rolling pin. Roll the dough out into a 30cm x 20cm rectangle, fold the shorter sides into the centre and roll gently over them. Repeat folding in sides and rolling over the pastry twice more. Wrap the pastry in plastic and refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes (I left mine overnight).

Beat together the cream cheese filling in a medium bowl: start with the cream cheese, sift over the icing sugar and cornflour, and add the lime zest, juice and the vanilla. Beat thoroughly, until smooth.

In a small-medium bowl, sift the icing sugar over the blueberries and stir them together. Partially crush the blueberries with a fork, leaving some whole.

Lightly flour a long sheet of baking paper; unwrap the pastry and place it on the paper. Roll the dough out - Ottolenghi aims for a 32 cm-diameter circle, and I went for an oval that I could fit onto my baking tray. Transfer the paper and pastry onto a baking sheet. Spoon the cream cheese filling into the centre of the pastry, spreading it out but leaving a 1-2 cm border of pastry free around the edges. Dot the blueberry mixture across the cream cheese.

Use a knife to make 2 cm deep cuts in the pastry border at 8 cm intervals. Gently fold each pastry section over and inwards, so that they slightly overlap and form a thick edge. Refrigerate the crostata on its tray for 30 minutes.

Preheat an oven to 230°C. Brush the edges of the pastry with milk, and bake the crosata for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 180°C and bake for a further 25 minutes, until the pastry is golden and cooked through. After letting it rest on the tray for 5 minutes, transfer it to a biscuit rack to keep the pastry as crisp as possible. Allow it to cool for another 30 minutes or more before serving.

Cheesy broccoli pie

March 22-23, 2019

We had a weekend away in the country with a big group of friends recently and night two of our communal dining schedule was Pie Night. A few of us brought pre-prepared fillings and baked up a plethora of pies to feed the masses. Our contribution was a vegan cheesy broccoli pie from the Smith & Deli cookbook. It was wonderful, providing a nice burst of greens to offset the shepherd's and mushroom pies that others prepared. The cheesy sauce is pretty horrifying from a nutritional perspective, but it's goddamn delicious - gooey and a bit rich and the perfect pal for the broccoli. Highly recommended. 

Cheesy broccoli pies

(from Smith & Deli-cious by Mo Wyse & Shannon Martinez)

2 large broccoli heads, chopped

90g vegan margarine

1/3 cup olive oil

1 leek, white and light green parts, sliced finely

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup plain flour

1 cup veggie stock

1 cup soy milk

1 1/2 cups grated vegan cheese (we used mostly Bio Cheese)

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

1 teaspoon dried thyme

salt and pepper

Blanch the broccoli in a large pot of boiling water. Drain and set aside.

Heat the margarine and olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the leek until soft. Add garlic and cook for another minute before whisking through the flour and cooking for another couple of minutes.

Slowly add in the stock and soy milk, whisking to smoothness along the way. Stir through the cheese, nutritional yeast, Dijon, parsley and thyme and cook until the cheese has melted, 5 minutes or so. 

Add salt and pepper to the sauce to taste and then stir the broccoli back in. Cook for another 5 minutes and then leave to cool.

That's your filling - we wrapped halved Borg's puff pastry sheets into little squares around a few tablespoons of filling and baked until the pastry went golden (about 25 minutes). Spectacular.

Honey, miso & walnut pie

October 31-November 5, 2018

I'm very fond of white miso, and have been wanting to make a dessert with it for a long time. Naturally I bookmarked this recipe the moment I saw it on The Brick Kitchen. Even better, I found an excuse to bake it within days! I prepared this pie to share with friends on a weekend away in Cape Paterson.

I see it as a bit of a riff on the traditional pecan pie. The caramel is based on honey rather than brown sugar, so it's a bit lighter and sweeter; the walnuts are a more bitter counterbalance than pecans. While the caramel has a slightly whipped and not especially chewy texture, the sweetness is intense and a small slice goes a long way. I was a bit disappointed that the miso flavour weakened with baking, but others thought it still hit the right savoury note.

My pastry cooked unevenly (and I've inserted the Brick Kitchen baking tray technique into the methods below that I'll try next time) but otherwise I didn't experience any hitches along the way. A honey, miso and walnut pie sounds fancy, but its construction isn't too fussy and the results are excellent - I was showered with grateful murmurs as everyone helped themselves to two or three slices over the course of four days.

Honey, miso & walnut pie
(a recipe from The Brick Kitchen)

pastry
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon caster sugar
115g butter
1/2 cup cold water
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

filling
3/4 cup caster sugar
170g honey
2 tablespoons white miso
1 teaspoon salt
120g butter
300g walnut pieces
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup cream
3 eggs

Place the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor and pulse them to mix together. Slice the butter into cubes, drop them into the food processor, and blend until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix the water and vinegar together in a cup. Set the blender back on and add the liquid just a tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together into a ball (I only used about half the liquid and discarded the rest). Tip the dough onto some plastic wrap, bring it together into a ball, wrap it up and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (I left mine overnight).

Retrieve the dough from the fridge and roll it out to fit a pie dish (I do this between two sheets of plastic wrap). Ease the pastry into the dish, patching up any unevenness and trimming or crimping the edges. Freeze the pastry crust until solid, at least 20 minutes (I gave mine several hours).

Place the sugar and honey in a medium-large saucepan and set them over medium heat. Stir occasionally as they melt together. When they're smooth, whisk in the miso and the salt. When there are a few bubbles around the edges, add the butter and allow it to completely melt in, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool.

Preheat an oven to 180°C. In an ungreased baking tray, gently toast the walnuts until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Set them aside to cool. Place a large flat baking tray, big enough to hold the pie dish, in the oven.

Retrieve the caramel in the saucepan. Whisk in the vanilla, then the cream, then the eggs, one at a time. When everything is completely combined and smooth, fold in the walnuts. Pour the filling into the frozen pastry case, place the pie dish on the hot baking tray in the oven, and bake the pie for 45-60 minutes. It's ready when the edges are set but the centre is still a little wobbly; it'll firm up as it cools.

Cool the pie to room temperature before serving, and/or store it in the refrigerator.

Mont Blanc tart

March 30, 2018

Late last year a friend of mine gave me a small can of sweetened chestnut spread, after they'd been travelling in France. I had little idea what to do with it, but I had a hunch that Ottolenghi would have a suitable recipe or two. Sure enough, chestnut spread turns up in the index of Sweet as an ingredient in two desserts.

The Mont Blanc tart is reinterpretation of an Italian dessert where chestnuts are sweetened and whipped into cream. Goh and Ottolenghi's version starts with a sweet shortcrust; it's lined with a thin layer of dark chocolate and then filled with the chestnut spread. The name then comes in with a tower of whipped cream, which is sprinkled with candied pecans.

The presentation of my version didn't fulfill that vision, though it was pretty enough. Instead of baking individual tart shells I formed a single large pie. The double cream I bought became thicker and denser with whipping, lacking the airy texture needed to form a white mountain.

On its own, the chestnut spread had the nuttiness and velvety texture of hummus, though it was a lot sweeter. In the dessert, it acted as an unassuming caramel filling - the cream was richer, the chocolate had more depth, the pecans were sweeter. Together they formed a fancy and tasty dessert, even if the chestnut centre was overshadowed. For me it was a successful one-off project that I was proud to share around Ottolenghi club - I don't foresee any more little cans of chestnut spread coming my way, and this project hasn't inspired me to order them online.

Mont Blanc tart
(slightly adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Goh's Sweet)

pastry
200g plain flour
120g cold butter
30g caster sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons ice water

candied pecans
1 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon glucose syrup
1 tablespoon caster sugar
120g pecan halves
pinch of salt

filling
60g dark chocolate
250g can sweetened chestnut spread

cream
300mL double cream
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla rum

Start with the pastry. Drop the flour into a large food processor, dice the butter and drop it in after the flour. Add the sugar and salt. Pulse the ingredient together until they resemble coarse breadcrumbs. Add the vinegar and water, and pulse further until the dough just starts coming together. Turn the dough onto plastic wrap, forming it into a ball the then flattening it into a disc. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour.

This is plenty of time to candy the pecans. Preheat an oven to 190°C. Line a large baking tray with paper. Place the maple syrup, glucose and sugar in a small saucepan and set it over low heat. Stir them together until they're combined and smooth, then add the pecans and salt. Turn off the heat and stir the pecans until they're evenly coated in the syrup, then turn them into the baking tray, spacing them out so that they're minimally touching. Bake the nuts for 8 minutes, until the syrup is bubbling and they smell toasty. Allow the nuts to cool to room temperature, then roughly chop them.

When the dough is ready, roll it out between two sheets of plastic wrap and fit it into a greased pie dish. The dough will contract when baked, so leave plenty of extra pastry on the edges. Refrigerate the pastry shell for 30 minutes. Preheat an oven to 180°C. Retrieve the pastry shell, prick its base with a fork, line it with paper, and pour in some pie weights (I have some old dried chickpeas for this job). Bake the pastry shell for 18 minutes, until it is golden brown around the edges. Remove the paper and pie weights, then bake for another 8 minutes, until the pastry is cooked through. Allow the base to cool.

Gently melt the chocolate using your preferred method, then pour it into the base of the pastry shell, spreading it evenly with the back of a spoon. Refrigerate the pastry to set the chocolate. When the chocolate is set, spoon in the chestnut spread and spread it out evenly. Return the tart to the fridge.

When you're almost ready to serve the dessert, place the three cream ingredients in a small bowl and whip them with an electric beater until medium-soft peaks form. Serve slices of the tart topped with white mountains of cream and sprinkle the candies pecans on top.

Notes on a vegan cherry pie

June 18, 2017

My Twin Peaks cherry pie was so unforgettably good that only a month later I rolled up my sleeves to try making a vegan version. There's just one ingredient that needs substitution: butter. Following discussion on our facebook page, I replaced the butter with the same weight of Nuttelex and set my food processor a-whirring. It melded with the flour, forming a dough without need of any of the water listed as the final ingredient.

Then came the tough part. This vegan crust was easy to roll but impossible to pick up without extensive tearing. I rolled it twice, cursed the heavens a hundred times, and patched it up as best I could. Forming the lattice wasn't much better, with all of my pastry ribbons breaking in one, if not three, spots. For all that angst, my pie was a flawed beauty, just as sweet and juicy and sour and crumbly as the original. (If anything it was even more Twin Peaks-appropriate, with the filling gorily spilling from one side.)

So, what to do from here? Well, in the first instance we dolloped coconut yoghurt on the pie and shared it proudly with friends. A little later I pulled out my vegan pastry reference to compare recipes and reflect. It's possible that I was just rolling my small volume of dough too thin, and likely that my ratio of flour, fat and water was out of whack. Either way, I think the next iteration needs more flour (say, half-to-one cup) and whatever iced water is needed to form a dough. Hopefully this extended note to self will lead to an equally tasty but less fraught vegan cherry pie in... well, maybe one more month.

Reese's poptarts

August 6-7, 2016

While I was in the US, missing Michael and cooking stuff together, we agreed that we'd try making the Street Vegan poptarts when I got home. While I would have happily embarked on them any old weekend, we had a nice opportunity to bake them for a 2-year-old's birthday party and share them around.

Michael picked out the peanut butter-chocolate filled version and I set to work a day in advance. The filling is a simple, reliable mix of chocolate ganache swirled with peanut butter. The pastry is made with electric beaters and includes egg replacers, which isn't my usual pace. It seemed too mushy and I upped the flour to make a more sturdy, rollable dough (I've adjusted the quantities accordingly below).

On the morning of the party I set to work assembling and baking the poptarts. The recipe's designed to make 10 hefty tarts but instead I cut at least twice as many two-bite treats. I barely used half of the filling since my mini-tarts had a higher edge-to-middle ratio (again, I've altered the recipe below for a better fit). The edges sealed easily with a fork just so long as I didn't dust too much flour around.

It was difficult to work out when the poptarts were fully baked since they're not supposed to brown. I gave 'em a few extra minutes on a hunch and they were still a little underdone - I'd suggest eating a tester before you progress to the icing stage. Once you spill the glaze over them there's no going back! The original recipe suggests using chocolate glaze all over and white vanilla glaze in decorative stripes, but I thought some coloured sprinkles would be less fiddly and for an audience of under-5s.

Indeed, I overheard one youngster declare these poptarts his favourite food at the party. A couple of adults got a real kick out of them too. I'm not quite convinced that they're better than a more conventional pie or tart, but they were a fun little party project to share with friends.

Reese's poptarts
(slightly adapted from a recipe in Adam Sobel's Street Vegan)

pastry
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons egg replacer powder
1/2 cup water
3 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup margarine

filling
1/2 cup soy milk
1 cup dark chocolate chips
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup peanut butter

glaze
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 tablespoon soy milk
coloured sprinkles

Place the vinegar, egg replacer and water in a medium-large bowl and beat them together with an electric mixer until foamy. On low speed, mix in the flour, salt and margarine until the mixture comes together as a dough. Allow it to rest for at least 15 minutes - I covered my bowl with a lid and refrigerated it overnight.

In a medium bowl, bring the soy milk to the boil. Take it off the heat and stir in the chocolate chips and salt. Keep stirring them together until they form a thick, smooth ganache. Chill the ganache for at least 2 hours, I refrigerated it overnight. When it's time to assemble the poptarts, swirl the peanut butter through the ganache.

Line 1-2 baking trays with paper and lightly spray them with oil. Preheat an oven to 180°C.

Lightly flour a clean surface and roll out the pastry to 2-5mm thick (I did this in about 4 small batches). Slice the dough into rectangles of the same size - mine were about 4cm x 6cm, but the recipe was designed for larger ones. Spoon filling into the centre of half of the rectangles, place the other rectangles on top of each once, and use a fork to crimp the edges together (see photo above).

Place the pastries on the trays and bake them for 15-20 minutes, until they're a little firm. Allow them to cool to room temperature.

Sift together the icing sugar and cocoa in a small-medium bowl. Stir in the soy milk to make a smooth glaze. Spoon the glaze over the centre of the poptarts and decorate them with coloured sprinkles. Allow the glaze to set at room temperature for at least an hour before serving.

Vegan jaffle party!

June 19, 2016

This idea popped up while I was hosting that Family Favourites picnic potluck in the summer. I was probably telling someone about how my family called jaffles Hot Ones (thanks to toddler-me) and got to thinking about how fun a jaffle potluck could be. A few irons in a row, a pile of bread, and everyone brings a filling. Hot Ones all round!

I waited until the cold weather rolled in, when toasty carbs bring the most comfort. My dozen-plus guests definitely brought the goods - extra jaffle irons, numerous vegan cheeses, home baked beans, mock meats, canned spaghetti, the last of a garden's basil... even sweet stuff like caramel bananas and chocolate chips.

For dessert, I had another family favourite to share - this one's something my mum would occasionally make for dinner guests. It starts not with bread, but with puff pastry. Yep, you just thaw out a sheet of puff pastry and cut it into two rectangles. Fill the rectangles will sliced banana, chocolate chips and marshmallows (these ones are vegan). Fold the pastry over into a square but don't fuss about pinching the sides - a good jaffle iron does all the shaping for you! These pastry pockets take longer to cook than your average bread-based toastie but they do eventually puff up golden and flaky, with sweet molten filling.

I candied some oranges Cinnamon Snail-style, then teamed them with chocolate spread and cinnamon for punderful jaffa jaffles. Others paired the chocolate spread with Turkish delight to great effect. It was a sweet way to pass a Sunday afternoon.

A very full vegetable tart

March 20, 2016

I've clearly been dominating the dessert division at our Ottolenghi get-togethers, because I felt a teensy bit flummoxed at the prospect of making a main. I lounged around with Plenty and Plenty More and some little ripped bookmarks, looking out for picnic-friendly autumn-appropriate dishes. I had plenty of time to plan and shop and cook. Michael nudged me into making the Very Full Tart - it looked like a ripper centrepiece and unlikely to be any the worse for being served at air temperature.

Ottolenghi recipes are notoriously effortful, and this is the rare one where you can actually bring extra work upon yourself. In Plenty, the recipe simply demands that you procure 300g of shortcrust pastry. Welp, I made my own. With a food processor on hand it's not too much of a drag, and I called on this ol' pumpkin tart recipe for (butter-heavy) quantities.

From there it was a long, slow procession of chopping and roasting vegetables - capsicums in two colours, eggplant, sweet potato, zucchini and onions. Layered up in the tart crust, they're topped with feta, ricotta and cherry tomatoes; thyme, too, if you can remember it. (Not me.) It's all bound together with eggs and cream. Though 45 minutes is theoretically enough to set the eggs, I found that the vegetables (especially the tomatoes) gave off extra juices and the tart was very bubbly.

Cooled down and cut up in the park, it wasn't as quiche-y as I expected. True to its name, vegetables tumbled all over, coated in a creamy gravy and not a set custard. Everything felt on the brink of collapse, yet each vegetable and cheese chunk held its own, and their pastry casing stayed crisp. If you're not self-consciously saving a piece for photos, it's a dish you can make a wild mess of, safe in the knowledge that it'll still taste great.

A very full vegetable tart
(slightly adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

crust
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
120g butter
3 tablespoons iced water

filling
1 red capsicum
1 yellow/orange capsicum
~100mL olive oil
1 medium eggplant
1 small sweet potato
1 small zucchini
2 medium onions
2 bay leaves
120g ricotta
120g feta
2 eggs
200mL double cream
7 cherry tomatoes
salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 180°C.

Place the flour and salt in a food processor. Roughly dice the butter and drop it in too. Blend the mixture together until the butter is thoroughly mixed through. With the motor still running, slowly pour the water in one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture comes together as a dough (you might not need all of the water).

Turn the dough onto a large sheet of plastic wrap. Place another large piece of wrap on top. Roll the pastry out to fit a pie dish. Put the top wrap off and ease the pastry into the dish; remove the second piece of wrap and trim the pastry to fit the dish. Dot the base of the crust with holes using a fork. Line the crust with baking paper and dried legumes, or another pie weight of your choice. Bake the crust for 10 minutes, then remove the pie weights and bake the crust for a further 10 minutes. Allow the crust to cool.

Turn the oven up to 220°C.

Use a small knife to remove the stalks from the capsicums, and any membranes you can reach. Shake out any seeds still inside the capsicums. Place the capsicums on a small baking tray, drizzle them with a little of the olive oil, and bake them on the top shelf of the oven.

Dice the eggplant into 3cm cubes and place it all into a large baking tray. Stir through about 4 tablespoons of the olive oil and some salt and pepper. Bake the eggplant for 12 minutes. Peel the sweet potato, dice it into 2cm cubes, and add it to the eggplant when it's done. Bake them together for a further 12 minutes. Halve the zucchini lengthways and slice it into 3cm lengths. Add it to the eggplant and sweet potato pieces when they're done, and roast all three vegetables together for a final 12 minutes.

By now the capsicums should have collapsed with brown skins. Retrieve them from the oven and cover them with foil to steam as they cool. Allow the other roasted vegetables to cool as well. 

Turn the oven down to 160°C.

Thinly slice the onions. Saute them with the bay leaves in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan over low heat. Stir them regularly, cooking until they're caramelised, around 25 minutes. Turn off the heat and discard the bay leaves.

Remove the foil from the capsicum dish and peel off their skins. Dice the roasted capsicums.

Spread the caramelised onions over the pie crust. Spoon in all of the roasted eggplant, sweet potato, zucchini and capsicums. Dice the ricotta and feta and arrange these over the roasted vegetables. Whisk together the eggs and cream with some salt and pepper, and gently pour them into the tart. Halve the cherry tomatoes and arrange them cut-side-up over the tart. Bake the tart for up 35-45 minutes, until golden and set. All it to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Cheeseburger puffs

November 22, 2015

We joined a gang of veg*n bloggers and associated hangers-on for a potluck picnic in Edinburgh Gardens this past weekend. The potluck was organised by Steph, who added the fun/complexity of a 'celebrity chef' theme. The easy option would have been to fall back on one of the many crowd-pleasing Ottolenghi or Isa recipes we've made before, but we decided to embrace the spirit of the theme more thoroughly and veganise some unlikely celebrity chef dishes.

Cindy had oodles of fun trawling her way through the slightly terrifying Paula Deen archives, weighing up options like the bacon cheeseburger meatloaf and the banana split brownie pizza - this Guardian rundown outlines just how horrifically unhealthy (and unvegan) Deen's cooking style is. In the end, after weighing up the picnic-appropriateness and veganisability of various mad recipes, we settled on these mini cheeseburger puffs, which basically involve wrapping the fillings of a cheeseburger in puff pastry.

With TVP replacing the the ground beef, Tofutti's American cheese slices filling in admirably for crappy cheddar slices and some squares of mock bacon adding our own special touch, these were a gloriously unhealthy vegan sensation. This is about as far from wholefoods as it gets. They were a huge success though, especially with generous dollops of tomato sauce on top. 

They're a bit fiddly to make - the TVP-based mince doesn't hold together as a burger patty at all, so you have to just scoop up a big spoonful of the mix into the centre of each pastry square (see above). Don't skimp on the homemade seasoning - the TVP is pretty flavourless on its own, so you really need to go crazy with the salt and spices. We made up our own versions of Paula Deen's silly salt and steak seasoning. The quantities below make 24 pastries, so consider halving it if you're not feeding a picnic full of hungry vegans.

The picnic food was all incredible - Johanna has already posted up her dishes, keep an eye on Veganopolous for a full round-up as well.

Mini cheeseburger puffs

(adapted from this Paula Deen recipe)

burger mix

1.5 cups TVP

1.5 cups boiling water

1 small onion, diced

seasoning

Roughly 5 parts salt, 2 parts pepper, 2 parts garlic powder, 1 part onion powder, cayenne, ground coriander and dill - up to about 2 tablespoons.

toppings etc

1 packet Tofutti American cheese slices -12 slices, quartered into 48 little squares

enough mock ham to make 24 little squares

6 sheets puff pastry

Soak the TVP in the boiling water for 10 minutes or so, until the water is absorbed.

Fry the rehydrated TVP with the onion for about 5 minutes. Stir in the seasoning, then kill the heat and let the mix cool to room temperature.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. 

Defrost the pastry sheets. Make the puffs up - each one needs one quarter of a sheet of the puff pastry, a tablespoon of the burger mix, two cheese squares and one ham square (see above). 

Fold the four corners of the pastry up to meet in the centre and cover the filling (see photos above). Pinch the corners of the puff pastry squares together and partially along the seams, leaving a few little air holes along the edges.

Bake for 20 minutes, until the pastry is crispy and golden. They're delicious fresh out of the oven, but just as good served later at room temperature.

Peanut butter & blueberry pie

October 17, 2015

Michael and I unintentionally went over-the-top on peanuts in our contributions to Hayley's birthday picnic, doubling down on roasted peanuts and peanut butter in both dishes. While Michael's dressed a kale and quinoa salad, mine formed the base flavour for a sweet little pie.

My first contact with this pie was as a recipe tester for Leigh Drew's Wrapped in Pastry. The peanut butter caramel filling was always destined to win me over, but it was the fresh blueberry topping that proved to be the clincher. Instead of the depth and richness of a more predictable chocolate/peanut butter pairing, blueberries really lighten up the caramel and lend a hint of tartness. It makes for a really nice springtime dessert.

The shortcrust pastry was not my best effort. I think I added too little liquid, rendering it crumbly and difficult to roll (yet so very easy to swear at). By contrast, the peanut butter caramel was simple and completed in perhaps 5 minutes. I enjoyed taking a little longer over the topping, alternating decorative circles of blueberries and roasted peanuts to pretty, homely effect.

This isn't the kind of recipe that will ever enter our weekly rotation but I can see myself enjoying it all the more for pulling it out once a year, when blueberries are cheap-ish and there are friends to feed.

Peanut butter & blueberry pie
(a recipe from Leigh Drew's Wrapped in Pastry,
made available online through her blog)

pastry
2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup margarine
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup almond milk

caramel filling
1 1/2 cups smooth peanut butter
1 cup almond milk
1 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

topping
1 cup fresh blueberries
2/3 cup salted roasted peanuts

To make the pastry, place the flour and icing sugar in a food processor and pulse them briefly to combine. Add the margarine and blend until it's thoroughly mixed through the flour. With the blades still rotating, pour in the lemon juice. Drip in the almond milk a tablespoon at a time and continue blending until the ingredients are well mixed; they might even pull together into a dough ball. Turn the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap, push it together into a dough ball with your hands, wrap it up in the plastic and refrigerate the dough for 2 hours.

Preheat an oven to 180°C and lightly spray a pie dish with oil. Retrieve the dough ball from the fridge, and unwrap it, leaving the spread out glad wrap between the ball and the bench. Arrange another piece of plastic wrap on top of the dough, and roll the ball out between the two plastic sheets to fit the pie dish. When it looks like a good fit, remove the plastic on top and ease the pastry into the dish open side down. Pull off the second layer of plastic and fit the pastry into the dish, trimming and patching where needed. Poke some holes in the base with a fork and bake the pastry until it's lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Allow the pastry to cool on the bench.

To make the filling, place the peanut butter and almond milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir them regularly until they're well-mixed and smooth, then take them off the heat. Sift in the icing sugar and add the vanilla, whisking everything together until it's very smooth. Pour the caramel into the pastry case and smooth over the top to even it out. Decorate the top of the pie with alternating concentric circles of blueberries and peanuts. Refrigerate the pie for around 2 hours before slicing and serving.

Bougatsa me Krema

August 30, 2015

I was smitten by this recipe the day that Greek Vegetarian Lisa posted it, but it's taken almost two years for me to try my hand at it. I gave it a go on a Sunday afternoon home alone, but not before I set some seitan simmering and cued up Netflix to replay the second season of United States of Tara.

The centre of the slice is a custard thrice-thickened with cornflour, semolina and eggs. I also made sure to add my fanciest vanilla. The custard is wrapped simply in a few layers of filo pastry, dabbed with butter. (Make sure to watch the video embedded in Lisa's post for some expert elastic bougatsa wrapping!) Since we weren't able to eat it all in a day I stored most of the custard and pastry separately in the fridge, assembling and baking just one pastry every few days when we were ready for it.

I'm not usually one for daintily dusting sweets on serving, but I think the sugar and cinnamon really liven up this dessert. We also accompanied ours with sliced kiwi fruit on the side - it turns out that kiwi and custard make a great team.

Bougatsa me Krema
(a recipe found on Greek Vegetarian,
where it's credited to George Columbaris' Greek Cookery)

3 tablespoons cornflour
4 tablespoons semolina
2/3 cup castor sugar
2 eggs
650mL milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
20 sheets filo pastry
150g melted butter
icing sugar and ground cinnamon for dusting

In a medium-large saucepan, stir together the cornflour, semolina and sugar. Whisk in the eggs and then the milk. Set the mixture over medium heat and cook it, stirring regularly, until the custard thickens, about 5-10 minutes. The semolina may cause it to thicken unevenly - just keep stirring and don't worry about it too much. Take the custard off the heat and whisk in the vanilla, trying to smooth out those semolina lumps as best you can too. Set the custard aside to cool a bit.

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a large baking tray with paper.

On the baking tray or a bench, layer five of the filo pastry sheets, brushing a little melted butter between each layer. Spoon a quarter of the cooled custard into the centre of the pastry rectangle, forming a rectangle of about 10cm x 15cm. Wrap the filo pastry up into a rectangular package (the video on Greek Vegetarian's page is a good guide), using a bit more melted butter to 'glue' the pastry up. Repeat with the remaining pastry, butter and custard to make four custard pastries and arrange them on the baking tray.

Bake the pastries for 20 minutes, until lightly golden, turning them upside down halfway through. Allow the pastries to rest for at least 10 minutes before dusting them with icing sugar and cinnamon, then slicing and serving.

Feta & mint filo parcels

June 16, 2013

June's calendar recipe is the kind of simple crowd-pleaser that every vegetarian should have in their repertoire. Feta, mint and lemon zest make a pastry filling that's bright yet rich, and ready in minutes. They're folded into layers of filo pastry, which can be wrapped up small for party bites or large for a meal. These cheese triangles are so flaky and tasty that no-one begrudges the shower of pastry shards caused by each bite.

For convenience, I used a powdered egg replacer instead of the real thing. It didn't seem to offer much binding power to our firm feta and I didn't really mind so you can skip the egg entirely if you please.

Feta & mint filo parcels
(from Robyn's Recipe Calendar 2013)

300g feta, crumbled
1/4 cup parmesan, grated
2 tablespoons mint, finely shredded
1 egg, lightly beaten
zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
375g packet filo pastry
125g butter, melted

Preheat an oven to 200°C and line two baking trays with paper.

In a medium bowl, mash together the feta, parmesan, mint, egg and lemon zest.

Unpack the filo pastry and roll it in a slightly damp towel. Retrieve two sheets of pastry, lying one on top of the other, and roll up the rest. Dab the pastry with melted butter and fold it longways once or twice, to form a long thin rectangle of half or a third the width of the original pastry sheet. Spoon a triangle shape of cheese mixture into one corner of the pastry and fold the triangle over and over to completely wrap up the pastry. (Since my instructions aren't great, take a look at this video.)

Repeat the pastry filling and folding to use up the ingredients and brush any extra butter over the pastries. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until crisp and golden.

Pâté en Croûte

June 10, 2013

It's very much time to crank the oven and warm up the kitchen, so I pulled out Wrapped in Pastry over the long weekend and invited rad relly Carol over for dinner, wine and a movie. This pâté en croûte was Michael's favourite of the recipes we tested for the book (and I made sure there was enough to share with him when he returned home).

Instead of fatty minced meat, this French-style vegan pastry loaf is full of mushrooms, lentils and herbs. Contrary to the whole winter-warming intention, it's actually supposed to be eaten at room temperature. I cheated and sloppily sliced steaming sections for Carol's and my dinner, then popped the remainder in the fridge. It certainly makes for more presentable, self-supporting slices in its traditional morning-after form (see photo above).

I couldn't track down tarragon on the fly and so my loaf came across a little strong on the sage, but not so's anyone else complained. You could doubtless tinker with the fresh herbs to suit your own tastes, just so long as you use lots of 'em! Along with some lemon zest they supply important top notes to a dish that could otherwise descend into brown stodginess.

Pâté en croûte
(adapted very slightly from a recipe in
Leigh Drew's Wrapped In Pastry)

lemon mushroom mousse
3 cups button mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons lemon zest, finely chopped
1/3 cup chives, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt

lentil pâté
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced into half moons
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 cans brown lentils, drained
1/3 cup fresh sage leaves, roughly chopped
2 cups fresh parsley, roughly chopped
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes

4 sheets puff pastry, frozen

Use a food processor to grind the mushrooms to a fine mince. Heat the oil in a frypan and add the mushrooms, sauteing until the mushrooms release their juices and they have mostly evaporated, about 10 minutes. Take the mushrooms off the heat and stir in the lemon zest, chives and salt. Transfer the mushroom mousse to another container to cool.

Return the frypan to low heat and add the oil for the lentil pâté. Add the onions and saute them until thoroughly softened and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the pepper and garlic and saute the onion mixture for a further 5 minutes. Allow the onions to cool down.

When the onions are near room temperature, place them in the food processor with the 1/4 cup red wine vinegar and puree them thoroughly. Add the lentils and blend again until smooth. Fit as much of the sage and parsley in as you can and keep blending until all the herbs are blended into the lentil pâté. Sprinkle over the yeast flakes and remaining red wine vinegar for a final thorough blend. 

Preheat an oven to 200°C. Defrost the puff pastry sheets. Line two loaf pans with baking paper.

When the pastry sheets are ready and completely flexible, use them to line the loaf pans. Leave lots of pastry overhanging the edges to fold over the top later. Spoon one quarter of the lemon mushroom mousse into the bottom of a pastry-lined loaf tin, smoothing it across the base, and repeat with another quarter of the mixture in the other tin. Divide the lentil pâté evenly between the tins and spread it evenly. Spread the remaining mushroom mousse equally over the two pâté loaves. Fold the overhanging pastry across the filling and seal up the pâté en croûtes.

Bake the loaves until the pastry is cooked through, up to 45 minutes. Keep an eye on them and cover the tins with foil if the pastry looks at risk of burning. Allow the loaves to cool to room temperature, or even refrigerate them overnight, before turning them out of the tins and serving them in thick slices.

Tomato frangipane tart

June 2, 2013

When Michael headed out of town, I went straight to the #tomato tag in my recipe wish list. At the top of it was this tomato and almond tart recipe from Ottolenghi in The Guardian. The (admittedly optional) inclusion of anchovies in a recipe marked (V) gives me an irritable-vegetarian-tic but I think they're easily replaced with capers.

Between the sheet of puff pastry and thick tomato slices lies Ottolenghi's clever savoury riff on frangipane. The usual butter, eggs and almond meal get the cheese and garlic treatment instead of sugar, and it's no less luscious. The butter and garlic made the biggest impression on me so if I were concocting a vegan version, I'd hesitate to replace the butter entirely with margarine. Supplementing with cashew butter, then going hard on the garlic and nooch might have a comparable effect.

This tart needs nothing more than some green leaves to support it; it's fabulous both freshly baked and later, at room temperature.

Tomato frangipane tart
(slightly adapted from this Yotam Ottolenghi recipe)

1 sheet puff pastry
70g butter, softened
1 egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup almonds, ground
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
50g ricotta
1/4 cup sharp cheddar, finely grated
salt and pepper
500g tomatoes, sliced 1cm thick
2 teaspoons capers
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat an oven to 220°C and if your pastry sheet is frozen, take it out to thaw.

Using an electric mixer over a medium-sized bowl, beat the butter until fluffy. Keep the beater running and add the egg. If it stubbornly won't beat in completely (mine wouldn't), add a few breadcrumbs and beat some more. Stop the beater and thoroughly stir in all the breadcrumbs, the ground almonds and the garlic. Next stir in half the thyme leaves and all of the ricotta and cheddar, plus a generous sprinkle of salt.

Line a baking tray with paper and place the puff pastry on it. Spread the almond mixtures thickly over the pastry, leaving a 2cm border around the edge bare. Arrange the tomato slices over the almond spread, allowing them to overlap. Sprinkle over the capers and the remaining thyme, a little salt and a lot of pepper, then drizzle it all with the olive oil.

Bake the tart for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180°C and bake for a further 10 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Give it at least a couple of minutes to rest before slicing and serving. It's also great at room temperature.