rustica sourdough, fitzroy: breads, cronuts, award-winning tart!

After stumbling upon Rustica Sourdough (402 Brunswick St, Fitzroy) many months ago, Simon and I quickly adopted it as our local bakery. I've posted about our happy discovery of their fig and fennel ficelle earlier this year, and ever since then we've continued to make more happy discoveries.

Take, for example, their roasted pumpkin bread, a supremely soft and fluffy semi-sourdough creation with plump and crunchy pumpkin seeds flanking the exterior.

Pumpkin bloomer, $6.20.

The sourdough rosemary and vine fruit loaf was quite small and expensive, but it was also incredibly generous with juicy raisins/sultanas. The fragrant, savoury touch of rosemary made it just that little bit more special and interesting.

Vine fruit and rosemary loaf, $6.75.

Then we have the cronuts (yes, you can find cronuts in Melbourne these days - yay!), which I would describe as doughnut-shaped flaky layered pastry. Despite their deep-fried nature, they felt pleasantly light on grease. I was impressed with the lemon curd cronut with its pretty balance of acidity and sweetness. The custard and jam cronut came second in terms of my preferences, but it was enjoyable too.

Lemon curd cronut, $4.20.

Jam and custard cronut, $4.20.

But if there is one thing with which I am absolutely and utterly in love, it is their passionfruit tart. I first purchased this thanks to a staff recommendation. It lived up to her exaltations, and then some. The passionfruit curd was beautifully intense, and together with the buttery shortcrust, this is a sexy treat that disappears fast. I was not surprised when it later took out a major award for Best Victorian Product at the 2013 Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards.

The award-winning passionfruit tart, $5.90.

We've also visited Rustica Sourdough in the evening, once. They started serving fancy-rustic pastas and burgers for dinner in August, however it seems that they've now decided to scale back and just open weekend nights for nibbles and drinks. Oh well. We did quite enjoy it that one time!

Meanwhile, there are still so many lovely baked goods I'm yet to try. I'm thinking my next bite will be of one of their intriguing chocolate violet crumble tarts...



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chicken cucumber sandwich with ginger mushroom butter

chicken cucumber sandwich, moving towards the light.

December's going to be a busy month. I'll be doing lots of overtime at work, and my parents are visiting, but hopefully I can still update my blog fairly regularly!

I'll just make this a quick one. One of the sandwiches I am most familiar with growing up consisted of buttered bread with chicken and cucumber. It's simple stuff, perhaps a little boring to some, but I am rather fond of it. I had some leftover cooked chicken from a soup the other day, so I decided to make this sandwich with a slight twist, while still keeping it quite uncomplicated. This is where oyster mushroom + ginger butter comes in...

Making the butter was easy. I sweated diced oyster mushrooms and finely grated ginger in a little bit of salted butter, then removed from heat and folded this mixture into some more butter. This makes a chunky but soft and spreadable gingered oyster mushroom butter. I swiped it on some freshly toasted ciabatta bread.

gingered oyster mushroom butter

On top, I layered cucumber slices, then sliced chicken, and seasoned to taste. Seasoning suggestions: I thought ponzu would be nice with this but since I didn't have any, I settled for a little soy sauce, mirin,  pepper, and lemon juice. If you have some suitable herbs or greens lazing about (which I didn't, but wish I did), you can scatter them over as well.

I definitely prefer eating this when it is freshly made, while the butter is still warm, the oyster mushrooms juicy and the bread is toasty. I think it agrees...

chicken cucumber sandwich, contemplating life.

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pão de queijo: brazilian cheese bread

pao de queijo

I have mentioned before that I have a fondness for South American stuff, and it's because I train capoeira, which is a Brazilian martial art. I have wanted to make something Brazilian for a few months now and finally stopped procrastinating recently with a venture into pão de queijo, a Brazilian cheese bread, simply because it seemed like it would be pretty easy. So I made some last week, using a recipe I found online and halving it, but it wasn't quite as easy as I thought - even though I followed the recipe, the mixture was too fluid and impossible to knead - I ended up pouring them into moulds to bake. The feedback was still great, but I wanted to see if I could do it better a second time.

I gave it another go this week with some adaptations based on my first try, and with the benefit of experience, it was a success! The first time I made it, I added tapioca starch to the liquid mixture. This time, I did it the other way round and gradually poured the liquid into the tapioca starch (this tip is thanks to the recipe from a book called Street Cafe Brazil by Michael Bateman), and stopped once I got the texture I wanted. As always, the recipe is just a guide. Feel free to individually adjust the amounts of each item during the process to achieve a dough you can work with. My end result was soft, but still workable.

my little golf-ball-sized creations: pao de queijo in the oven

Ingredients:
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup oil (I used rice bran oil)
1/2 teaspoon salt
225g / 1/2lb tapioca starch (also known as manioc starch, cassava starch etc)
1 egg
100g / 1/4lb finely grated parmesan (or similar) cheese

- In a saucepan, combine milk, water, oil, salt and bring to boil.
- Remove pan from heat and slowly pour the liquid on to the tapioca in a bowl while stirring it with a wooden spoon to a dough texture. (You may not need all the liquid mixture - stop pouring if the dough starts to become too soft and moist.)
- Stir in the egg, and lastly, the cheese.
- Grease hands, knead and make approximately a dozen little balls - mine were about the size of golf balls or a bit larger. (I had to shape rather than roll mine because my mix, while not liquid, was still quite mushy - and as you can see they're more like little lumps. They did end up puffing up nicely in the oven though!)
- Arrange on a greased baking tray, leaving enough space between each ball for expanding. Bake in an oven that has been preheated at 200°C (392ºF) for 20 minutes or till they transform into golden puffs.
- Best served hot or warm.

fresh pao de queijo after i bit into it. the interior is sticky when it's still warm, and more bread-like after it cools down.

And there you have it. A nice little batch of pao de queijo with crispy crusts that concede gratifyingly into a warm, chewy softness as you sink your teeth into them. Mm-mmm!

Note: Not having had the ones from Brazil, I'm not sure if these are true to the original, but I'm really satisfied with this batch and Simon loved them, eating about five in quick succession. So I'm putting this down as a triumph!

Update: My capoeira instructor, a Brazilian, has eaten my day-old pao de queijo and given me his high-five of approval. Yay!!


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