Sweet surrender to dessert-making’s charms

Baking, requires patience. Discipline. Intelligence. And these are qualities I associate with people who typically identify as female. Could this book convert me?

Talent: Helen Goh

Dessert or cheese? Sugar or spice? I know where I stand, both as an enthusiastic eater and fumbling home cook. In a restaurant, my idea of the perfect three-course meal is two entrées and a main. Sweets? Meh.

I’m more or less immune to the charms of biscuits, cake, puddings. Why devote valuable space to sweet stuff, I reason, when there’s anchovies and prosciutto and pasta in this world that need eating first?

So I was surprised to find a book called Sweet (Ebury Press, $55) on the kitchen bench. “Where did this come from?” I asked the real cook in the family. “I don’t remember this in the letterbox with a waffling press release from the publisher.”

“I bought it,” she said. And before I could splutter “You what?” her argument was laid out simply: “Every Yotam Ottolenghi book is great; we needed it.”

It is, of course, a lovely book; beautifully written and designed. But what grabbed my attention was the name of the co-author, Melbourne cook/chef Helen Goh – now resident in London, where she works with Ottolenghi. I remember her cafe in Hawthorn, Mortar & Pestle; I knew her recipes from the Nine press. I just didn’t know she’d moved to the UK and made her mark, and I’m a sucker for Australians who bring reflected glory on us all by punching above their weight abroad. A book with Yotam? It’s like playing fiddle beside Yo-Yo Ma’s cello.

Now, I currently identify as male and therefore favour the near-enough-is-good-enough approach to cooking. Some olive oil, some garlic, a bit of chilli. Imprecise, undisciplined yet instinctive cooking. But cooking sweet stuff, especially baking, requires patience. Discipline. Intelligence. And these are qualities I associate with people who typically identify as female.

Anyway, while I wasn’t looking, she whipped up a batch of chocolate, banana and pecan cookies from page 29 that were a bit like a bitter chocolate and cocoa fudge rolled in nuts, designed to be eaten super fresh. A hint of salt and cinnamon; very little overt sugar; moisture and banana fragrance from the fruit. They were unbelievably delicious with espresso and, I confess, whisky.

I had a closer look at the book. It’s got sorbet made with Campari. Chocolate tarts with tahini. Rice pudding with rhubarb and tarragon… sweets for savoury palates. And, breaking type, I actually followed a recipe and made something: apricot and thyme galettes with polenta pastry.

Polenta and thyme? Practically a main course. A buttery/nutty short pastry with a hint of salt and a fine “grit” of polenta; vanilla-laced cream with a pleasant note of thyme and the slightly tangy topping of fleshy apricots and a sticky glaze. They were – surprisingly – rather good and it’s a worry: this may just be the thin end of a rather fattening wedge.