The mission
Getting people to get their own work surfaces covered in flour and sugar!
The reason
A tribute to traditional baking and to embracing the simpler things, by making something to have at home, or to take to a friend’s as a small gift.
The goods
110 recipes, 367 pages, one “Sweet” book.
Prepare to be Ottolenghi-fied.
Anyone who’s had the joy of eating at at one of Yotam Ottolenghi’s restaurants or cooked from one of his many cookbooks knows just how delicious the end result can be.
Ottolenghi Belgravia, London circa 2009. I remember walking past this shop front and immediately I stopped mid-conversation to decipher all the things I could see through that window. Instantly, I knew this was a place of abundance and I wanted in.
. Chef, restaurateur, and author of books Plenty, Plenty More, Jerusalem and Nopi, was born in Jerusalem but spent many summers outside Florence with his Italian grandparents. His first job in a professional kitchen was whisking egg whites, just egg whites, and that was almost 25 years ago now, so if you’re in a bit of a meringue or soufflé bind you know who to call. It’s been 15 years since he opened his first Ottolenghi deli, and now he spends most of his weekdays in his London test kitchen sampling and test-driving creations, much of it with his partner in dessert crime and Melbourne pastry chef, Helen Goh.
“In a sense, Yotam and I have been working on this book for 10 years...” and the two things you can take away from this book, are abundance and celebration.
Goh comes from a food-loving Malaysian-Chinese family and baking was almost non-existent in her household. “We didn’t really bake cakes (Malaysian cakes use glutinous rice flour and are usually steamed) and in fact, my mother used the oven to store pungent dried fish and pots and pans!” she tells SBS. Goh was drawn to baking and pastry because of its precision and patience but also because by following a recipe and understanding a little bit about your ingredients you can achieve something really fulfilling, so when it’s good it’s really good, she says. “It was a kind of practical magic – transforming simple ingredients like butter, sugar, and flour into beautiful edible creations, and I always got such a rapturously response anytime I baked, so that got me hooked,” she explains. She wasted no time at all earning her Ottolenghi stripes after she and her Australian husband left Melbourne for London. Within a week of settling into her new city she had already locked in a job at Ottolenghi’s Notting Hill deli and 11 years on, their dessert fates are still intertwined as respect, understanding and commitment has not only forged a partnership but a friendship.
“In a sense, Yotam and I have been working on this book for 10 years,” Goh tells SBS. The pair set out to create a desserts book that was accessible to anyone and that each of the recipes selected, as Ottolenghi explains, “would be ones which were the most delicious and which we’d want to make again and again and which we could imagine lots of other people wanting to make again and again at home”. With a mix of old and new, as well as recipes from an array of pastry chefs, all with an Ottolenghi touch, Sweet really dives into that idea of celebration and abundance through food, in particular dessert. “Baking is such a joyful way to show your love and bring people together” says Goh and we couldn’t agree more!
'Sweet' by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh Source: PEDEN + MUNK
“The smaller something is, the more you can eat.” Wiser words have never been spoken (or in this case, written - that's from Yotam, in the introduction to the book) and Sweet is quite the pragmatic book that beautifully imparts tips and wisdom along the way. While some recipes require a little extra attention and care, others share tips and ideas around where you can substitute, what is optional and what can be made ahead or simply left out. The book isn’t sugar-free or “free from” by any stretch. “There’s so much sugar in this book that we thought about calling it, well, Sugar,” writes Ottolenghi. While they don't intend to be flippant in a time when sugar is a provocative issue, their dessert manifesto is about flavours and textures being injected into new and beloved desserts and are aimed at those who love to lick the big spoon.
“Baking can be something which people either ‘do’ or ‘don’t do’ and we’d love to get over this: to show that if you can cook, you can bake and that the process of baking is such a particularly happy one and we really hope Sweet gets everyone excited to try something new,” says Ottolenghi, talking to SBS about his latest creation. So what are his sweet must-haves? He recommends the staples of sugar, eggs and flour as the beginning and on top of this a floral essence – rosewater, orange blossom for example – to make a sugar syrup. And a bar of chocolate - gianduja (chocolate-hazelnut) or some really dark chocolate - will never go unused.
While the duo don't have any imminent plans to flee their London lives for the Australian sun, Goh does visit her family in Melbourne regularly and Ottolenghi still holds hopes of one day bringing his shop down under, so, for now, we’ll have to settle for more eating, testing and hopefully, publishing.
Chocolate, pecan and banana cookies Source: PEDEN + MUNK
The two things that characterise Sweet are abundance and celebration - from tahini and halva brownies, Persian love cakes and Roma’s doughnuts filled with saffron custard cream to walnut, rosewater and cinnamon pavlova and a flourless chocolate layered cake with coffee, this book brings back the joy of baking and reiterates the wise philosophy that there’s always room for dessert. Hidden within the swirled berry meringue cover is something for everyone; and no, you don’t have to be an accomplished pastry chef or have rosewater running through your veins to appreciate a slice of Sweet.
Recipe images from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Goh, photography by PEDEN + MUNK, ().
Middle Eastern millionaire's shortbread Source: PEDEN + MUNK
