Pear, Walnut & Dark Chocolate Crumble A new recipe for you courtesy of work I did with Walnuts Australia towards the end of last year – incidentally perfect for Melbourne’s current ‘polar blast’ iciness and the dark evenings. It’s one of my favourite winter crumbles: thinly sliced pears in brown sugar, vanilla and lemon with a buttery, oat-y walnut studded topping, dark chocolate melted and oozing through the crevices. Previous iterations had involved cooking down the pears in a buttery caramel – which whilst delicious and still a recommended alternative, churns up significant time and di ..read more

White chocolate, rhubarb and raspberry cake with almonds, a hint of orange and topped with cream cheese frosting. Jump to recipe. Apparently you can expect recipes to be a rarity from me this year – cake has slid further down the priority list than I would like. It seems like a fact of life that every year gets busier (with a brief pause there with lockdown baking time), but the addition of exam study and attempts at research on top of work has really tipped it over. I’ve always wished I was one of those people who could be incredibly productive until the small hours of the morning and surviv ..read more

Baked spinach and ricotta gnudi in roast tomato eggplant sauce. Jump to recipe. Gnudi: Tuscan dumplings, akin to extra large ricotta gnocchi without the shaping and boiling steps. It often takes people aback when you say it, like they might have just heard you suggest nudes of some variety (gnudi does literally mean naked in Italian). The name apparently comes from the fact that they are similar to ravioli filling, only disrobed without their surrounding pasta. The term gnudi is more commonly used in areas near Florence, whereas they are also known as malfatti (meaning badly made) in Siena. T ..read more

Lemon-y apricot, pistachio and cardamom cake. Jump to recipe. I’m definitely a stuck record but I can’t believe its already been three months since a recipe here! Life is busy etc etc. To sum up – Victoria emerged blinking from lockdown, life outside of home resumed, everyone got covid (myself included, very mildly) and it has been a strange summer of lots of hospital work, cancelled plans because of isolation requirements, retail and hospitality closures with staff furloughs and everyone trying to reach this elusive “new normal” (I realise this is what the rest of the world probably went tho ..read more

I know I’ve published three banana bread recipes before (a basic version fancied up with espresso mascarpone, a slightly alternative tropical passionfruit coconut version and a healthy-ish tahini heavy version) and there are literally millions to be found on the internet. Maybe even billions, who knows. I still think you need this recipe. It’s the only one I ever make anymore, and whenever anyone asks for the recipe I struggle because it only exists as an ingredients list on my iphone notes. It’s a one bowl mix frequently made the night before work and might be the only reason they kept me ar ..read more

Better ricotta gnocchi with kale & pangrattato. Jump to recipe. Ricotta gnocchi are easily the superior gnocchi. Maybe I’m biased, but I wouldn’t even bother with the potato version – the risk is far greater than the reward. Who wants to boil and peel and mash potatoes only to increase your chances of ending up with a stodgy end product? (That being said, Ottolenghi’s swede gnocchi with miso butter remain on my to-make list, but only because any recipe he touches turns to gold). Ricotta, on the other hand, are the light, delicate, easy but casual gnocchi. The throw-together-for-friends-on ..read more

Dark chocolate & honey pear tart: a sweet short pastry, rich dark chocolate filling and golden honey roasted pears. Jump to recipe. Unfortunately very little has changed since the last recipe here – Melbourne remains in hard lockdown, work remains work, life remains limited to takeaway coffee from down the road and runs within a 5km radius and regular house cooking adventures because these are the small things we have left. (If you need inspiration, might I recommend Ixta Belfridge’s biang biang noodles heavy on the sichuan pepper, Alison Roman’s roast pumpkin with pistachio butter on yog ..read more

Zucchini ginger udon noodles with maple tofu: a simple 30 minute dinner with lots of veg, herbs and crispy bits. Jump to recipe We are back with a new recipe and a new lockdown!! Two things that seem to go hand in hand these days – apparently the only moments I have available to cook/test/photograph are when forced to stay home. It’s lockdown V5 in Melbourne (just to recap, here we have lockdown one (passionfruit meringue bars), two (pear miso galette; rhubarb custard brûlée tarts), three (pannacotta lamington cake) and four (tiramisu tart) for a bit of viewing nostalgia/PTSD). Not much to sa ..read more

Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Tiramisu Tart: a nutty, buttery pastry, silky baked chocolate ganache and pillowy soft espresso mascarpone cream. Jump to recipe. Hello! It’s been an unintentional 3 month hiatus and I’m not quite sure how it’s already June. There was a scary amount of work (a recent 140 hour fortnight definitely bordered on illegal), an adventure to Western Australia (beaches and wineries and more beaches that have to be some of the most beautiful in the world) and I finally made it back to Aotearoa aka the homeland for a weekend under the new and now suspended COVID safe travel bubbl ..read more

Grilled corn, cucumber & peanut soba salad with crispy tofu and a creamy chilli, lime & tahini dressing. Jump to recipe. There are a number of recipes on high rotation which I continue to make variations of, based on the season and *mostly* the contents of my fridge. This is one. The formula goes: soba noodles, lots of herbs and veg, some riff on a usually lime and tahini based dressing, protein source (gooey egg, peanut tofu, miso salmon etc etc), crunchy bits (crispy shallots, chopped nuts and seeds, spring onion). Despite the fact that the instagram algorithm would have you think w ..read more