Apple and Sage Galette with Salted Maple Caramel Sauce

Now, I just adore sage. I love it and I eat it all the time. But I realised recently, only ever in savoury dishes. Pork, apple and sage? Delicious! Burnt Butter and sage over gnocchi? One of my favourite dishes. But I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a sweet recipe featuring sage. It seems particularly strange to me considering how good apple and sage are together.

Goat’s Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust and Poached Strawberries

I’m a little embarrassed to say this, particularly on a blog devoted to everything sweet, but for a long, long time, I didn’t really care for cheesecakes. It’s not like I hated them, they just weren’t on my radar. I never chose to eat them and I certainly never chose to bake them.

Brown Butter Rosemary Honey Pie

It is Spring here, but no one seems to have told the weather that.  Melbourne is cold, drizzly, windy.  That, in my mind, means that it’s still pie season.  Who am I kidding – when is it not pie season?  I’ll eat pie any day of the year.  But I think I enjoy them more in the cozy warmth created by cocooning oneself against the cold, miserable outdoors.

Roasted Strawberry Cake with Swiss Meringue Cream Cheese Buttercream

Yesterday, the first Sunday of September, is for us Australians, Father’s day. It is a day my siblings and I are reminded of every time we talk to our dad for the three or so weeks preceding it, and would forget at our own peril.

Peanut Butter Mascarpone Brownie Sandwich Cookies

Something I like to do with my cooking is playing with flavours. It’s endlessly fascinating to me is how certain foods so disparate and seemingly at odds with each other can taste amazing together. Strawberries and goats cheese. Chocolate and basil. Honey and rosemary.

But there are also times when you don’t want to be testing your tastebuds. When you want something tried and true, classic – a combination that brings childhood memories flooding back with one taste. For those times, I bring you this recipe.

Apple, Strawberry and Ginger Pie

If you have read my blog with any kind of regularity, or even just the last two posts, you’ve probably guessed that I like to make cake! In fact, my favourite thing ever to bake is an elaborate layer cake. I love imagining different flavour combinations and deciding what each layer will consist of and how it will be decorated. But if I ever had to choose between eating a cake or a pie (though who would ever be cruel enough to make me choose?), a good pie would win every time.

Spiced Honey Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Burnt Honey Brown Sugar Glaze

This blog post has been a long time coming. It’s hard to believe that my last post was in January! It’s been a hell of a year – upheavals, changes, and barely time enough to breathe let alone formulate, test, photograph and share any new recipes. But now, life has mercifully calmed down, and I can get back to my poor, neglected and much missed corner of the internet.

Hummingbird Cake with Pineapple and Lime Cream Cheese Icing

Residing, as I do, “down under”, the first hummingbird cake I tasted was the one I baked myself. Like many quintessentially American foods (biscuits and gravy, red velvet cake, cheese from a can) this cake is largely unknown in Australia, which is strange considering it’s basically a glorified banana cake, and a bloody tasty one at that.

Lemon and Cardamom Scented Sticky Buns

Every morning, my alarm goes off a little after 4:30. After a few false starts, I drag my sorry bones out of bed and sleepily down my first coffee of the day. I drive along empty (save for the occasional very keen jogger) streets until I arrive at the bakery where I work.

Salted Chocolate Passionfruit Tarts

Or, how I conquered my fear of pastry.

Yep, for a long while pastry really freaked me out. And boy, have I had some shockers. Tart bases thicker than the filling. Puff pastry so solid it could chip a tooth. A pie bottom so soggy it literally just disintegrated.