Bathie's Cookbook Club #7: Sweetheart by Natalie Paull - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The seventh instalment of Bathie's Cookbook Club is here: we introduce one new recipe book a month, with your chance to win a cookbook and meet the author in our Parramatta studio. Terms and conditions apply.
Our seventh cookbook is Sweet Heart by Natalie Paull. She'll be in the studio with Chris and three ABC Radio listeners who are having a crack at one of the dishes from the book. Make sure you tune in from 11:00AM on September 27.
If you'd like to cook along at home, have a go at Natalie's Baked Citrus Bars recipe below, happy cooking!
Lemon bars always make me so sad. I would crave them, make a tray, eat a few pieces, feel overwhelmed with acidity, vow never to eat them again and then, three months later, I had a craving for them so there I was, baking damn lemon bars again. And not loving them. Again. The cure was to take care of the squinch: the nuclear bomb of acidity at the end of many lemon- forward recipes. You feel fearful to eat any more. Moderating the lemon with a little orange makes the least squinchy lemon bars you ever did eat. It truly takes two to tang.
200 g (7 oz) egg, from approx. 4 eggs
1. Preheat the oven to 140°C (275°F) and line a 23 cm (9 inch) square cake tin. Cut two pieces of baking paper as wide as the tin and crosshatch them (see Top Trix 1) with a light spray of cooking oil to keep the paper adhered to the sides of the tin. Trim o any excess flappy paper or secure the side paper with a peg or foldback clip.
2. Make the butter cookie base by melting the butter (microwave or stovetop) with the finely grated zest. Mix with the remaining base ingredients using a stiff spatula to form a wet paste. This mix might look too wet, but it will cook to buttery moreishness.
3. Bake the base Reserve a heaped teaspoonful of the raw mix to patch the crust post-bake if necessary. Press the mix into the tin and smooth it out with an offset spatula. Bake for 40–45 minutes to an even blush of light brown across the top. If any bubbles form under the base while baking, just prick them with a skewer and press to gently deflate them.
4. Make the citrus curd top while the base cooks. Set up a double boiler over a low simmer. Juice and strain the lemons and orange separately. Combine 130 g (4¾ oz) lemon juice and 50 g/ml (1¾ oz) orange juice in jug.
In a wide bowl, hand-whisk the sugar and flour together, then whisk in the egg, followed by the lemon-orange juice. Melt the butter (stovetop or microwave) and whisk that in last with the salt. Place the bowl on top of the double boiler and heat, stirring slowly and occasionally – temp check to 65°C (149°F). It will look shiny yellow, the foam will have dissipated and the consistency will be thicker, like runny cream. Remove from the heat and set aside, uncovered if using soon. If holding for a later bake, press a piece of plastic wrap onto the surface to prevent a skin forming, then chill.
5. Bake the bars As soon as the base is ready, remove it from the oven and, using a tea (dish) towel, gently press on the base edges so they re-meet the tin sides to ensure the topping won’t seep underneath (see Top Trix 2). If there is any dramatic side shrinkage, patch with the reserved dough. Scrape the curd topping onto the hot base. Reduce the oven temperature to 120°C (250°F). Carefully return the topped base to the oven and bake for 15– 20 minutes – the topping will be set fully (no wobble but not so much as to blister and puff at the edges) and have a fragile bounce – the internal temp should be 90°C (200°F) when the thermometer tip is pushed slightly into the base.
6. Chill at room temp for 15 minutes, then chill until completely set for at least 1–2 hours.
7. Cut the cooled bars Tug on the excess paper on the sides to loosen the slice, then lift/slide the slice out of the tin and place on a chopping board (see Top Trix 3). Peel the side papers back to lay flat or trim them o with a sharp knife. Dip a serrated knife in hot water, dry, then chop into bars – I like neat squares of 5.5 cm (2¼ inches) – any trimmings are for you! Lift the squares off the paper and dust with icing sugar if you wish.
8. Keep and store Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
Individual tangy bars A cheapy little six mini-loaf silicone mould makes cutesy individual bars. Halve the base recipe amounts and divide between the indents. Bake for only 30 minutes with the silicone moulds on a shallow baking tray. Make a full batch of the lemon topping – you may have a little topping left over.
Toffee top! I am such a sucker for a brûléed top on lemony things. Cut the bars and lift off the paper onto a heatproof tray. If they are too close, they will fuse together as the sugar caramelises. Working with one or two bars at a time, scatter a layer of caster sugar on each bar and cook the sugar with a blow torch. Top tip for brûléeing: avoid directing the fire for a prolonged time on the top. Kind of dance the flame over the top, pulling up when the sugar bubbles energetically and the colour deepens. Allow to cool so the toffee can harden to a crisp crust.
Pash-lime Replace all the lemon with similar high-acidity lime, and the low-acidity orange with fresh passionfruit pulp.
Get squinchier If you are a masochist and want to get pucked up, keep the full amount of juice – 180 g/ml (6½ oz) – as all lemon.
‘Images and text from Sweet Heart by Natalie Paull, photography by Rochelle Eagle. Murdoch Books RRP $49.99.
