passover week 2026 - passover fig galette

passover week 2026 - passover fig galette

24 Mar 2026

For Passover Week I like to challenge myself and this year my challenge was to make passover puff pastry. Puff pastry needs to be made in a cold kitchen to prevent the butter layers melting and it was 30°C the day I made the pastry. The end result, whilst not really puff pastry, was crunchy and flaky and pretty good but not worthy of 6 letter folds and 6 hours of your time. 

As I don't want to share a recipe with you that isn't perfect, the pastry recipe I'm sharing today is one that I've used for the past 4 or 5 years. It's a shortcrust pastry recipe though so it will be less flaky than the one pictured here. It's adapted from an Aran Goyoaga gluten free pastry recipe and it gives consistently good results. Just to note if figs aren't in season where you live, you can use another fruit like apples, pears, plums or even blood oranges to make the galette.

Here's the recipe for you, which makes a 9 x 13 inch rectangular galette. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Passover fig galette 
Pastry 
150g superfine matzo meal
30g almond meal
2 1/2 tbs tapioca or potato starch
1 tbs caster sugar
pinch sea salt
135g unsalted butter, cut into 1-cm pieces
1 egg 
4-5 tbs iced water

Frangipane
60g unsalted butter
55g caster sugar
50g almond meal
2 tsp grated orange rind
2 tsp potato or tapioca starch
pinch sea salt 
1 egg yolk, lightly whisked

Fig Filling
10-12 figs  
55g sugar
1 tsp grated orange rind
1 egg white

Glaze
2 tbs apricot jam
1 tbs boiling water 

To serve
Whipped cream

Base
Combine the first 5 ingredients in the food processor and pulse to aerate. Add the diced butter and pulse ten times until butter is the size of peas. Whisk together the egg and 2 tbs of ice water. Add it to the dough and pulse until it comes together. Add more ice water if needed. Knead the dough a couple of times and wrap it in plastic wrap forming a flat disc and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Frangipane
Combine all of the ingredients in a small food processor and mix until well blended. Chill until needed.

Assembly
Preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional. Roll the dough into a rectangle, approximately 9 x 13 inches (5-mm thick). Transfer the dough to a baking tray lined with baking paper or a silpat. Spread the frangipane over the prepared pastry, leaving a 3-cm border, then place the tray in the fridge while you slice the figs.

Remove the pastry from the fridge. Combine the sugar and orange rind in a small bowl. Arrange the fig slices decoratively over the filling until it is completely covered. Sprinkle most of the sugar over the figs, leaving a little to sprinkle over the edge of the pastry. Gently fold the pastry over the figs, pressing as you go to hold the figs in place. It’s ok if the dough cracks a bit – simply pinch it back together. My pastry was quite soft by this stage so I returned the filled galette to the fridge for 30 minutes until the pastry was firm again.

Brush the pastry border with the beaten egg white then scatter the pastry border with the rest of the sugar. Place the galette on the bottom shelf of the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 190°C, conventional, then move the tray to the centre rack of the oven and bake for a further 20 minutes or until the galette is beautifully golden on top and the crust is crispy. Take the tray from the oven and transfer the galette to a cooling rack. 

The crust is very tender when warm, so let it cool and settle before serving. Just before serving, glaze the figs with the warmed apricot jam and serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

The galette is best served the day its baked. Any leftovers need to be stored in the fridge as the pastry softens at room temperature.

The galette received rave reviews from the neighbours and even though the pastry was made from matzo meal they were none the wiser. They thought the galette was delicious and in fact one neighbour declared the galette was one of my best ever bakes, which makes my heart glad. 

I'll keep working on the puff pastry recipe and hopefully I'll be able to share a new and improved recipe with you next year.

See you all tomorrow with another bake for Passover Week 2026.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2026 - flourless chocolate bundt cake

passover week 2026 - flourless chocolate bundt cake

23 Mar 2026

Welcome to Passover Week 2026, where I challenge myself to produce beautiful cakes and pastries using only Passover friendly ingredients. I do not use any artificial rising agents such as bicarb soda or baking powder, even though they are permitted. My Grandma Sonie would be rolling over in her grave if I did such a thing. 

Every year I try to make one dairy free recipe for Passover week and this year's recipe is a flourless chocolate bundt cake, adapted from a recipe for flourless chocolate teacakes from Sweet by Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. 

I needed to make a few adjustments to the recipe to make it both dairy free and kosher for Passover. I swapped oil for the butter in the cake and used another water ganache recipe which didn't contain either corn syrup or butter. Apparently kosher for Passover amaretto exists but I don't have any in my cupboard so I just added more coffee to the mixture.

The original recipe makes 6 small bundt cakes but I only have 4 small bundt tins so I decided to make one larger bundt cake instead and adjusted the recipe accordingly. If you'd like to make 6 small bundt cakes please refer to the linked recipe.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a small bundt cake. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Flourless chocolate bundt cake
105g vegetable oil
160g dark chocolate (70% cocoa content, roughly chopped)
130g caster sugar
1-tsp instant coffee granules (dissolved in 2 tbs of boiling hot water)
10mls amaretto/coffee 
130g almond meal
4 eggs, yolks and whites separated
½ tsp sea salt

Method
Brush the base and sides of a small bundt tin with cocoa pan release – equal quantities of butter or margarine, oil and cocoa powder - and place in the fridge until needed.

Place the oil and chocolate and in a large microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Whisk the mixture and, when melted, remove the bowl from heat. And half of the sugar, along with the dissolved coffee granules, the amaretto or coffee, almond meal and egg yolks. Stir to combine and then set aside.

Place the egg whites and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment in place. Beat on high speed for about 1 minute, until soft peaks form. Slowly add the remaining sugar and continue to beat for 3 to 4 minutes, until the mixture is light and dry. 

Spoon one dollop of the egg whites into the chocolate and fold to combine before gently folding the remainder. Set aside at room temperature for an hour to rest. 

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C conventional. Once the cake batter has rested spoon the batter into the prepared tin. Place the bundt tin on a baking sheet in the centre of the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, rotating halfway through, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out with just a few crumbs attached (not wet batter). Remove from the oven, let the cake sit for 10 minutes before inverting it onto a wire cooling rack. Set aside until completely cooled and then gently tap out the cake.

Water ganache
75g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
30ml boiling water
15 mls maple syrup
1/2 tsp Passover vanilla extract

Water ganache
Place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Pour over the boiling water. Either microwave for 20 seconds on high, or place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water for 1-2 minutes, to melt the chocolate. Gently stir together with a whisk until combined and smooth then stir in the maple syrup and vanilla. 

Set aside at room temperature for 20-30 minutes until ganache thickens to a spreadable consistency then spread ganache over the top of the cake and let it drizzle down the sides. Allow the ganache to set before serving.

As you can see, the cake came out gloriously squidgy, just what you want in a flourless chocolate cake. If you can, bake the cake the day before serving because I think cakes made with nut meal taste better as they mature.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Passover Week 2026.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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salty sweet passionfruit crisp sandwiches

salty sweet passionfruit crisp sandwiches

16 Mar 2026

When preparing last year's Christmas cookie box, I tried out 2 new recipes and both recipes failed. I couldn't use those cookies so this year I'm going to audition potential Christmas cookies in advance, hopefully avoiding the same situation. 

I thought I'd make some passionfruit crisp sandwich cookies adapted from a  recipe from Natalie Paull's book, Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice. The original recipe was for salty sweet lime crisp sandwiches but with a few passionfruit lurking in the crisper I decided to make a passionfruit version. The filling recipe is very generous and makes enough for 2 batches of cookies so the leftover filling is now in the freezer.

I cut the dough in half and placed one half back into the fridge. It's quite warm in Sydney at the moment and I found the dough softened very quickly making it almost impossible to handle. I managed to get about 10 cookies onto the tray but I needed to use a lot of bench flour in the process. Not wanting to admit defeat I pulled out a couple of sheets of baking paper and rolled out the rest of the dough between the 2 sheets of paper. This was so much easier and for the second batch of cookies, I just placed the piece of baking paper with cookies in situ onto a baking tray. I used a 6cm cutter to make the cookies because that's what I had in my kitchen and cut out a little peep hole in half the cookies, to expose the passionfruit filling.

Here's the recipe for you which makes 10-12 cookies. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Salty sweet passionfruit crisp sandwiches – makes around 12 filled sandwiches

Lime cookies

100g unsalted butter

30g good extra virgin olive oil

zest of 1 lime or lemon

200g plain flour

1/4 tsp fine sea salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 egg

80g caster sugar

cooking oil spray

Sweet salty sprinkle

30g caster sugar

1/4 tsp sea salt flakes (lightly crushed)

Passionfruit frosting filling

30g passionfruit pulp

240g icing sugar

60g unsalted butter (very soft and squidgy)

15mls olive oil

1/4 tsp sea salt flakes

Lime Cookies

Melt the butter (microwave or stovetop), then add the oil and cool completely — warm butter will make a greasy, seized dough. Add the lime zest, then set aside to cool.

Weigh the flour, salt and baking powder together into a small bowl. Stir with a whisk to combine, then set aside. In a large bowl, hand whisk the egg and sugar energetically for around 30 seconds until it just turns a shade paler yellow. No need to whip in lots of air. Whisk in the cool butter/oil/zest. Switch to a stiff plastic spatula and stir in the dry ingredients until the mixture forms a thick, mashed potato–like paste and the bowl has clean sides. Scrape into a piece of plastic wrap and chill for a minimum of 3 hours, or ideally overnight, before rolling out.

Preheat the oven to 160°C, conventional. Line a shallow baking tray with cooking oil spray and baking paper. Give the dough, still wrapped, a few firm pushes against the work surface to encourage it to yield to the rolling pin. Unwrap the dough then roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper. Roll to around 30 cm × 30 cm (12 in × 12 in) — around 4 mm thick. Stamp out as many cookies as you can with a 6 cm fluted square cutter, making sure you stamp hard to cut through any zesty bits lurking along the cut lines. Lift the cut cookies onto the baking tray, only slightly apart, as they won’t spread at all.

Collect the scraps, squeeze together lightly and roll again. Try to avoid rolling a third time, but do it if you have to. No need to chill again — these can go straight in the oven to bake for about 40–50 minutes until firmly set (when you can easily lift one up). They should look dry, not gummy, and the colour will be a honey gold hue.

Remove from the oven, make the sweet salty sprinkle by mixing the sugar and salt in a small bowl and dust over the cookie tops while they are hot. Place the trays on a wire rack to cool completely for 10–15 minutes before filling, or cool in the oven overnight. If the oven temperature is any higher or you dust the raw dough with the sprinkle pre-bake, the cookies will start to contract and dome, making them a bit funny looking, and tricky to fill without overloading the curved space with excess frosting. If they are still warm, flatten with a heavy tray on top. The edges may crack a little.

Make the passionfruit filling while the cookies are baking and cooling. Place the passionfruit into the bowl of a stand mixer and add the remaining ingredients on top. Beat with the paddle attachment on speed 4 (below medium) for 10 minutes until the frosting is fluffy, pale and ultra-creamy. if the filling is looking a bit dry then add a squeeze or 3 of lime juice. Scrape the bowl sides down twice. The frosting should hold its shape and not be melty or slack. If the frosting does slump, take the bowl and paddle off the mixer and chill for 30 minutes. Return to the mixer and keep beating until cool and fluffy.

To fill the cookies, swipe a heaped teaspoonful of frosting on one cookie, smooth out evenly with an offset spatula, then swipe the spatula against the edges of the cookie to make a sharp finish. Sandwich the top on and give it a tiny squeeze together. Run your pinky finger around the sides to neaten up any oozy bits. 

For cakeshop pro filling, scrape the frosting into a piping (icing) bag with a small sized tip (#3). Lay half the cookies, top side down, on a clean tea towel (dish towel) to prevent slipping. Pipe an outline of frosting, then fill it in. Sandwich the top cookie on.

Baked and filled the cookies will keep for up to 2 weeks, airtight and chilled. They soften a little over time.

They tasted as you would expect - a crisp biscuit that's equal part salty and sweet sandwiched together with a passionfruit cream filling. 

Next week is Passover Week where I'll be sharing 5 Passover friendly bakes with you. I must get cracking though because I have 2 more bakes to prepare and photograph by next week.

See you all again next week.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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the french bastard's pain aux raisins

the french bastard's pain aux raisins

9 Mar 2026

When I visited Paris in 2023 my favourite pastry by a long shot was the pain aux raisins from The French Bastards. Rather than raisins or sultanas the snail was filled with currants and it was delicious. You can imagine how delighted I was when the bakery published a recipe book, 'The French Bastards, Modern Pâtisserie Classics from Paris's Cult Bakery' in 2025, which contained their recipe for the pain aux raisins. 

I copied the recipe then studied it. The recipe was obviously a scaled down version of a commercial batch of pain aux raisins. The recipe was very short on detail and some of the measurements didn't appear to be correct. I bought some high fat content butter and set to work. I struggled on aided by multiple google searches for pain aux raisins recipes plus suggested resting and cooling times during the lamination process. 

The end result didn't look too dissimilar from the original but I could have rolled the dough more tightly to get another swirl. My lamination skills definitely need work. It was 26°+ C the day I made the dough and despite using ice blocks to chill the surface and regular rests in the fridge and freezer, my butter block melted a bit during the rolling process. The quantity of pastry cream in the recipe wasn't very generous and although I increased the quantity a little I think you need at least 50% more. However the quantity of syrup was super generous and probably double what you need but any leftovers can be stored in the fridge. 

The dough was also very dry so I had to add another 40-50 mls of water before it came together. Then finally, the recipe suggested baking the snails at 150°C, conventional for 25 minutes. All the other recipes I consulted suggested baking the snails at 180°C-200°C, conventional which is what I ended up doing.

Here's the original recipe for you from The French Bastard's cookbook, without my suggested changes, which makes 6-12 snails. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to see a demonstration of a double/single fold mentioned in the recipe I've attached a link here, with l.architecte.patissier expertly showing how the turns are performed.

The French Bastards Pains aux Raisins - makes 6 
Preparation time: 1 hr * cooking time: 25 mins * resting time: 2 hrs 15 mins

For the pastry cream
112g whole milk
21g caster (superfine) sugar
10g custard powder
4g egg yolk
22g whole egg

For the croissant dough
141g pastry (sponge) flour
141g fine soft wheat flour (e.g, Italian 00 flour)
6g salt
11g fresh yeast/4g dried yeast
14g unsalted butter, cold
42g caster (superfine) sugar
7g cold water
110g whole milk, cold
169 g unsalted dry butter (84% fat)

For finishing
600g currants

For the syrup
150g caster (superfine) sugar
150g water

Pastry cream
Pour the milk into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Combine the sugar and custard powder in a bowl, add the egg yolk and whole egg and mix well. Pour in half the hot milk, stir to combine, then return the mixture to the pan with the remaining milk. Bring back to the boil, then remove from the heat. Allow to cool.

Dough
In a mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine all the ingredients for the dough, except the dry butter. Mix on the lowest speed for 5 min to form a dough, then knead on speed 2 for 8 minutes. The dough should be smooth.

Shape the dough into a rectangle on a baking tray (pan). Cover with cling film (plastic wrap), allowing it to be in direct contact with the dough and rest for 15 minutes in the refrigerator.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and use it to encase the dry butter. Make a double turn and roll out the dough to a thickness of 8 mm. Next, make a simple turn and roll it out to a thickness 8 mm, then roll out the dough to a thickness of 4.5 mm. Trim the edges of the dough to form a regular rectangle. Press the lower edge of the dough with your fingers.

Using a spatula, spread the pastry cream over the entire surface of the dough. Scatter the currants evenly over the cream. Starting at the top, roll the dough into a sausage, then cut it into six slices. Lay the slices on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and leave to rise for 2 hours.

When they have doubled in size, preheat the oven to 150°C, conventional and bake for 25 minutes. In the meantime, make the syrup. 

Syrup
Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Allow to cool. Remove the pains aux raisins from the oven and brush them with the cold syrup while still hot.

Would I make pain aux raisins again? I'd like to improve my lamination skills, so the answer is 'yes' but I'd use a different recipe. Perhaps this one.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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pillowy peach polenta tart

pillowy peach polenta tart

2 Mar 2026

I've had this pillowy peach polenta pie recipe bookmarked for quite some time.  The recipe (s) came from Natalie Paul's first cookbook, Beatrix Bakes, which I borrowed from the library then photocopied the recipe. Once peach season  arrived I fished out the recipe and discovered I didn't have the recipe for the custard filling. When I copied the recipe I hadn't realised there were 4 separate elements to the recipe and I'd only copied 3 of the 4 components. In the end I decided to use a different custard filling from Natalie's second book, Beatrix Bakes Another Slice, which I whipped up in the microwave.

Although I do own a 24cm round tart tin, I just love my rectangular tin. It's so easy to cut the finished tart into neat slices but it's smaller and I have to scale the recipe down to 2/3 of all the ingredients. If you'd like to make the 24cm round tart, you'll need to roast a kilo of peaches and prepare 50% more of the polenta pastry recipe. The amount of custard should be sufficient.

Here's the recipe for you, adapted from Natalie Paull's recipe for pillowy peach and polenta pie, which makes a 10 x 35cm oblong tart. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Pillowy peach and polenta tart - serves 7 

Citrus-roasted peaches
750g ripe peaches (approximately 6 peaches)
150g/ml orange juice (or juice from other mid-acidic citrus, such as mandarin or tangelo)
40g caster sugar

Polenta crust
160g plain flour
65g fine (or instant) yellow polenta
65g caster sugar
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
100g unsalted butter, cold and diced
1 egg yolk (25g)
15g/ml cream
½ tsp vanilla paste
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest

Vanilla pastry custard 
50g caster sugar

20g cornflour

pinch sea-salt flakes

40g cream

40g egg yolk (from 2 eggs)

200g/ml full-fat milk
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

To assemble

1 egg white, lightly beaten
icing sugar for dusting

Citrus-roasted peaches 
Preheat the oven to 160°C, fan forced/180°C, conventional. Have ready a large non-reactive roasting tin that will hold the fruit, when halved, in a single layer.

Remove any stems and cut around the natural seam of the fruit. Twist the sides to release the halves from the stone - do this over the roasting tin to catch any juice. If the fruit shows resistance, switch to carving the lobes off with a small-serrated knife. Put the fruit in the tin.

Pour the orange juice over the fruit and scatter over the sugar. Place a piece of baking paper on top and press down lightly to meet the fruit. Cover tightly with foil. Bake for 30-40 minutes.

Peel the foil back and lift the paper carefully to avoid nasty steam burns. You are looking for the fruit to retain their shape, but for the flesh to feel yielding to the touch when squeezed lightly and for the raw appearance to diminish. If the fruit are just on the cusp of cooked when you take them from the oven, employ the resting technique; keep them covered with foil to retain the heat and leave them to rest to doneness.

Cool to warm, taking the foil off but leaving the paper on to prevent discolouration. If the skins slip off easily, peel away. If they are obstinate, leave the skins on, as removing the skin can tear the flesh away and that's too precious to lose. Store the fruit in their syrup in the fridge.

Polenta crust 
Put the flour, polenta, sugar and salt in a wide mixing bowl. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the dry ingredients just until the butter lumps are the size of small peas and the flour has taken on a yellowy hue. When tossing through your fingers, it should feel like silky ground almonds with a little polenta grit interspersed with buttery lumps. These small butter lumps are going to melt during baking, creating a little steam, which will help flake the pastry apart.

Lightly combine the egg yolk, cream, vanilla and lemon zest in a small bowl, then add to the buttery flour. Keep mixing with your hands, lightly squeezing the dough together. The mix will look crumbly at first and then will come together like stiff play dough. Loosely wrap the dough in plastic wrap, then press the dough into a 2 cm thick disc, gently squeezing around the edge to smooth out any cracks. If the dough is not too warm, you can start rolling now. Or if it feels sticky, chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes - just ensure that the dough is nicely pliable before rolling.

Divide the dough into two pieces: two-thirds and one-third (280g and 140g). The larger portion is for the base of the tart and the smaller portion is for the top. Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and press it out a little with the palm of your hand to ease it into the start of rolling. Roll out the dough to into a rectangle about 4-mm thick. Trim, then gently lift and flop the dough into the tin.

Working in sections, tuck the dough right into the edge and against the side of the tart tin to prevent air pockets, then roll off the excess with a rolling pin.

Add the offcuts to the smaller dough portion wrap in plastic wrap and chill until needed. The pastry can be a little pesky to roll, so ensure it isn't too warm before you start. It will happily be lightly kneaded again for a second or third attempt at rolling.

Freeze the tart shell for at least 1 hour before blind baking. Make the custard while the tart shell is chilling.

Cold start vanilla custard
Place the sugar, cornflour and salt into a medium heatproof bowl. Mix in the cream and the egg yolks and stir until well combined. Stream in the milk and vanilla bean paste and mix until smooth.

Place the bowl into a microwave oven and cook on high for 2 minutes, stirring after each minute. Cook for another 30 seconds on high, stir and then microwave for another 30 seconds. As the custard thickens it will look lumpy but just whisk hard and it will all come together into a thick paste in 30 second to a minute. Return the bowl to the microwave and cook for another 30 seconds if not quite thick enough.

Once cooked, scrape the custard into a plastic container and press a piece of plastic wrap on the surface of the custard to prevent a rubbery skin forming. Chill for an hour. If, after chilling, the custard appears sloppy, it was undercooked. Simply return the custard to the microwave and cook for another 30 seconds to 1 minute or until thick.

Prebake the crust
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), conventional. Cover the frozen dough with a piece of aluminium foil, tucking it snugly into the edge of the tin. Fill the lined tin with sugar or baking beads and bake for 20 minutes or until the crust has just set and there is a whisper of brown on the edges. The pie will be filled and re-baked, so the crust is only baked until pale. Cool for at least 15 minutes before filling.

Meanwhile, remove the remaining portion of dough from the fridge to soften for rolling. Get the citrus-roasted stone fruit ready. Pull the peaches out of the syrup (you will have some fruit and syrup left over, so freeze them for another baking adventure) and dry between paper towel. When the crust has cooled, smooth the vanilla pastry custard over the base using an offset spatula. Place the peaches on top, cut side down.

Roll out the dough to a rectangle large enough to cover the tart. Carefully brush a light coating of egg white on the crust edge and a little on the peaches, to encourage the top pastry to adhere. I like to roll the top pastry just before baking so it settles effortlessly over the filling and is pliable enough to seal well. You can roll it earlier and keep it chilled: just ensure it returns to a floppy state before it goes on top.

Place the pastry top over the filling
To do this, shimmy a spare tart tin base or a thin flat board under the pastry and slide the pastry into position on the peaches. Do this carefully, as the egg wash will adhere it to the top immediately. (This step didn't work for me and the pastry cracked into pieces. I cut the rectangle into 3 separate pieces and placed each third separately, overlapping each piece slightly which seemed to work out fine). Push the top pastry down to meet the cooked pastry on the side and pinch the excess off with your fingers. Use a knife to poke a few steam-release vents in a pretty pattern over the pastry top.

Bake in a 190°C (375°F) conventional oven for 45 minutes until light golden and a little puffed. You want to preserve the golden glow of the polenta, so don't over-brown. If a few cracks form on top, they will settle upon cooling. Cool the pie for at least 2 hours before dredging with icing sugar and slicing into generous wedges.

The end result - beautifully soft roast peaches, and a vanilla custard filling encased in a crunchy polenta pastry. Who could not love this combination. The pastry is a bit tricky though so I'm wondering whether I could polentarize my almond shortcrust pastry recipe, which is much easier to deal with. Watch this space.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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kopi cake with peanut honeycomb

kopi cake with peanut honeycomb

23 Feb 2026

I requested Helen Goh's book, 'Baking and the Meaning of Life' from my local library. It was very popular and there were many people ahead of me in the queue. After waiting patiently for 2 months without any luck, I decided to buy my own copy. 

I promptly bookmarked at least 30 recipes I needed to make, some sweet and some savoury.

I am not a coffee lover but I do love peanut brittle so when I saw the photo of the kopi cakes topped with peanut honeycomb I knew I had to make them. Rather than making mini cakes I decided to make one larger loaf cake and I used my own coffee icing recipe as I didn't have quite enough condensed milk. If you'd like to make the smaller cakes or Helen's icing, the link to the recipe is below.

Here's the recipe for you in Helen's own words, which makes a small loaf cake. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C

Kopi Cake with Peanut Honeycomb - makes 1 loaf
Cake
180 g self-raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp fine sea salt
180 g unsalted butter, cut into roughly 6 pieces, then left at room temperature
100 g caster sugar
80 g soft dark brown sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
10 g instant coffee powder, dissolved in 20 ml water from a recently boiled kettle

Coffee Icing
1 tsp coffee powder dissolved in 2 tsp boiling water
½ tsp vanilla paste
60g room temperature unsalted butter
60g mascarpone or cream cheese at room temperature
20g milk powder
generous pinch sea salt flakes
125g sifted icing sugar

Peanut honeycomb (optional)
70 g caster sugar
30 g golden syrup or honey
1 15ml tbs water
70 g roasted peanuts
pinch of fine sea salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Cake
Grease and line the base and sides of a 1 standard loaf tin (approximately 1 kg capacity, roughly 20 x 10 cm) with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 160°C fan-forced/180°C conventional.

Sift the flour, cinnamon and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. Place the butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed until light and creamy-about 2 minutes.




Reduce the speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping down the base and sides of the bowl after each addition. The mixture will look curdled at this stage, but don't worry - it will come together at the end. Add the sifted dry ingredients and the coffee, then mix on medium-low speed just until it is combined.

Scrape the batter into the prepared tins and bake for about 50-55 minutes for the loaf tin - a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean. Place the tins on a wire rack and allow to cool for about 15 minutes before turning the cakes out to cool completely. While the cake is in the oven, make the icing.

Icing
Place the coffee in a small bowl and pour the boiling water over. Stir well to combine, then set aside to cool to room temperature.

Place the cooled coffee, vanilla, butter, mascarpone or cream cheese, milk powder and salt in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Sift the icing sugar over the top. Beat with the paddle attachment for 10 minutes on speed 4 (below low) until pale, and fluffy. Store covered in the fridge until needed. If the icing is too firm , you may need to re-whip it or soften in 10 second bursts in the microwave.



Peanut honeycomb
Line a baking tray with baking paper. Combine the caster sugar, golden syrup (or honey) and water in a small saucepan. Place over low heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Without stirring, bring to a low simmer and cook until the mixture has just turned golden brown and reached 149°C (hard crack stage) on a candy thermometer (about 3-5 minutes). Add the peanuts and salt, stir to combine, then quickly stir in the bicarbonate of soda. When it foams up, pour the honeycomb onto the lined baking tray, then set it aside to cool completely.



When you are ready to serve, break the honeycomb into smaller pieces and place it in a ziplock bag. Roughly bash the bag a few times with a rolling pin to lightly crush the honeycomb.

Spread (or pipe) the icing thickly on top of the loaf then sprinkle with the peanut honeycomb. Serve at room temperature.



Preparation Tip
The peanut honeycomb is gilding the lily somewhat, so don't feel you have to make it, but for textural crunch, it adds another dimension to the cake. It can be made in advance and stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

I did have a few little hiccups with the cake. My instant coffee powder just wouldn't dissolve properly; I misread the recipe and didn't add enough bicarb soda to the peanut honeycomb so it became peanut brittle and the cake sank spectacularly in the centre. Memo to self - don't bake when you're sick with the flu and have spent most of the weekend in bed because it never works out well. In the end I filled the crevasse with sweetened whipped mascarpone cream into which I folded some of the finely chopped peanut brittle (a Schitt's Creek reference, IYKYK) and the people to whom the cake were served, declared it delicious.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen, hopefully error free.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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