A dessert a day...

The Real Simple way.

Hello and welcome back to Cooking the Stacks. I am so glad you are here to join me for some experimental home cooking, where I pick a foodie stack I admire, and cook or bake from it through the week.

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Hello again my loves.

This week I have been baking from

Sophia Real | Real Simple Food

- queen of food trends and unusual flavour combinations.

Would you like to become an adventurous and experimental baker? Well, Sophia will help you level up. It’s time to get eclectic.

The biggest challenge of baking from Sophia though? Choosing what to bake.

My bake list stood at around ten recipes for the week at one point. Recipes such as pear, cocoa and garam marsala cake, prune sticky toffee pudding with miso butterscotch, and umeboshi plum French toast are still scrawled on that list, unbaked, taunting me with ‘one day’.

The weather in the UK helped though. We’ve been enjoying a mini heatwave, which led me to focus on Sophia’s lighter, more summery recipes.

Eton Mess in a very fancy glass

Such as this light and fresh Eton Mess, with macerated pink grapefruit giving a bitter edge, alongside a moreish olive oil cream. I also tried this delightfully simple recipe with orange too, which worked deliciously.

Or these Burnt Honey Pots de Crème, with Anise Roasted Peaches and Pine Nut Brittle, perfect to celebrate May Day.

In her recipe, Sophia uses apricots, which I was unable to find. So, my version will be a little sweeter with the roasted peaches.

But I loved the taste of the burnt honey. I’m now adamant I took it off the hob too soon and could have handled more intensity. Don’t be shy people, let that honey burn!

And that pine nut brittle - Holy. Moly. A perfect savoury compliment to all the sweetness, and a gratifying little nibble.

Or her Chamomile Financiers with Chamomile Poached Pears.

Full disclosure, I don’t like tea. I think it tastes like pond water, and I don’t understand my nation’s obsession with it. As a result, I’ve always been nervous to bake with tea.

But Sophia has convinced me with these light and floral financiers - which I baked in a mini bundt tin for fun. Also chamomile and pear is a perfectly delicate combination I will be experimenting with in my own baking.

The final dish of the week was this delectable Plum Tart Tatin with Chinese 5 spice. Crisp pastry, soft plums and a warming spiced caramel.

For me, this dessert would be even more spectacular in colder weather. Perhaps sat by the fireside, golden leaves out of the window. Also, pastry in warm weather can be a pain in the proverbial.

Dish of the Week

Once again, my husband and I are at odds with our dish of the week.

For him, it’s these Raspberry, Rose and Cardamom Bostocks. An indulgent, yet easy brunch dish Sophia calls the love child of French Toast and Almond Croissant.

But for me, the dish of the week was so simple, I made it with a five-year-old.

Sophia’s Nori, Sesame and Miso Rice Krispie Treats are dangerous. Like a salty, umami caramel, I inhaled them, instantly addicted.

When I told my daughter about the seaweed in these, she crinkled her nose. Eventually I convinced her to do a half and half situation - half pink kiddie rice krispie treats, half adult deliciousness.

I will definitely be making these again. But with friends, who can eat them with me, so I don’t devour them alone in twenty minutes.

Sophia’s desserts whisper luxury. But they were all relatively easy to prepare, letting the well balanced flavours speak for themselves.

Her recipes are proof that you don’t need too many complicated techniques to make high class food. Just imagination, and a little courage to try something a bit different. It may just be the best rice krispie treat you’ve ever tasted.

Now, for a quick chat with the lady herself…

From miso marshmellows to soapy strawberries, Sophia gives us the lowdown on recipe testing, supper clubs and life as a foodie substacker.

Photo Courtesy of Sophia Real

1) If you had to choose just one, which recipe on your stack is your favourite, and why?

I am really proud of the Salted Coconut Babka - a babka that is inspired by the flavours of a typical Singaporean breakfast of soft-boiled eggs in soy sauce with toast with butter and kaya (a sort of coconut curd or jam).

It took a few tries to get the salted coconut filling just how I wanted it but the end result is really delicious. Sweet, eggy, coconutty and wonderfully complex. Nothing like the often tooth-achingly sweet coconut flavoured sweet treats I grew up with.

Photo Courtesy of Sophia Real

2) I love that you are able to pair unusual ingredients, and make them work in the most delicious and unexpected way. Are there any flavour combinations that really didn't work for you in testing?

I would not say there have been any that didn't work at all. But there have certainly been some that have just been a little underwhelming, and not as delicious as I had imagined them. E.g., a few years ago I thought it would be delicious to make tea cakes with a miso marshmallow fluff filling. And while the tea cakes themselves were fine, I realised there is probably a reason you cannot buy savoury marshmallows. The miso marshmallow fluff wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either.

I also learned that I don't like cakes baked with strawberries in the batter, especially recipes with baking soda. I don't care for the texture of the strawberries and also find they react with baking soda and develop a soapy aftertaste.

3) You've run a series of Supper Clubs. What's the key piece of advice you would give to anyone keen to host their own supper club?

I actually wrote a whole post about how to start a Supper Club on my Substack (see here). I think the key piece of advice is to make sure your planning also includes such easily overlooked and boring-sounding issues like making sure that you have enough dishware and cutlery for everyone (with a few extra in case something breaks or things fall on the floor).

We noticed right before our first supper club we were a bit low on cutlery and thankfully one of our friends could help us out at the last minute.

4) If you could invite a chef (dead or alive) over for dinner, who would you invite, and why?

That is such a tough question - there are so many inspiring chefs out there. But I would probably have to say Yotam Ottolenghi. I am a big Ottolenghi fan, like many others, and my sense has always been that Ottolenghi tests his recipes to infinity and beyond.

Given the sometimes lengthy ingredient lists I would love to ask him how he knows when to stop and when a dish is just right and ready for publication. (I was actually so intrigued by this question and his work at his Test Kitchen I twice applied to do stages at the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen. Alas, they don't do stages the way restaurants do them).

5) Now time to pay it forward - tell us a foodie stack you admire, and why you admire them?

There are so many so this is hard. Can I mention two?

If so, I would say Jordan Smith's Save me a Slice for all things pastry and Devan Grimsrud's Darn Good. Basically I want to eat everything Jordan and Devan post. I mean did you see Devan's recipe for eggs au poivre? Or Jordan's recipe for Whole Mandarin Gochujang Corn Cake? Genius, both of them.

Next Week

Well folks, next week is my birthday. I shall be 41 years young.

I hope you will indulge me in a birthday meal - a birthday meal cooked entirely from Substack, from starter to main to birthday cake. And cocktails too.

I cannot wait to share the menu and all the details with you next week.

In the meantime…

A date for your diaries!

The gorgeous Jenn Sharp has launched a wonderful new stack Sharing Kitchens Live. Her contagious enthusiasm and joie de vivre has convinced this shy Brit to do a live with her!

I would be utterly delighted if you would come and join us for a bake along on May 16th at 6pm (GMT+1)/12pm (CST). Where we’ll be baking up a storm - there will be a cocktail too!

More details coming soon!

Is there a foodie stack you are loving? Or perhaps you want to tell me about your own?! Please do let me know in comments, I’d love to hear about it.