Bergamot Melting Moments

I think melting moments (or yo-yos as they are sometimes known) are such a cheery biscuit. They are wholesome and comforting in a tasty and sturdy way, and are something I think adults and kids alike would enjoy. And they are quite simple to make as well. 

You only need four ingredients, and I thought the longest part of the whole recipe was rolling out the dough into balls to form the biscuits - which honestly wasn’t that long, but the rest of the steps are really quite quick. 

My love for bergamot is probably well known by now, and since we have many to use at the moment these melting moments had to be flavoured with bergamot. However you can use whatever citrus you like instead. 

This recipe is slightly adapted from one I created last year for The Healthy Baker, which you can check out if you want a slightly different take on the traditional melting moment.

Bergamot Melting Moments

Ingredients:                                       

300g unsalted butter, softened

120g icing sugar/mixture

Finely grated zest of 1/2 bergamot

450g plain flour

Ingredients for the filling:

80g unsalted butter, softened

200g icing sugar/mixture

3 tsp fresh bergamot juice

Finely grated zest of 1/2 bergamot 

Method: 

Preheat oven to 145 degrees Celsius, and line three large baking trays with baking paper. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar and bergamot zest until creamy.

Add the flour to the creamed butter, and mix on low speed until a dough forms. 

Roll teaspoonfuls of the dough into balls and place on the prepared trays (you should end up with 40-44 individual dough balls/biscuits) leaving a little space in between each. Then lightly press down each ball with the back of a fork so they flatten out a little. Dip your fork in flour if it is sticking to the dough.

Bake for 25 minutes. They will be cooked when the undersides of the biscuits are lightly golden. To ensure an even bake, rotate the baking trays in the oven around half way through. 

Allow to cool on their trays.

Once the biscuits have cooled make the filling by beating all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment or by using a hand held mixer. Mix until light and fluffy and everything is well combined. 

Pair up the cooked biscuits, and turn one from each pair over so the underside is facing up. Spread or pipe the filling on to the underside of one biscuit in each biscuit pair, then gently sandwich the paired biscuits together. 

Leave the biscuits for half an hour or so for the filling to firm up a bit (you can do this in the fridge in warmer weather). Biscuits will store well in an airtight container for a few days. 

Makes 40-44 individual biscuits and 20-22 sandwiched biscuits. 

Cookbooks to Learn From

I believe you can always learn something from a cookbook, but there are some out there that are designed to really teach you something or be an authority on a particular topic, cooking style, region etc. 

I love cookbooks that add to my knowledge on a particular area of cooking, or those I can use to refer back to when I need help with a particular technique or flavour pairing. Below is a list of some I find most useful.

What would you add to the list?

1. The Flavour Thesaurus and Lateral Cooking by Niki Segnit - Niki's books are the product of immense amounts of research and are so useful to have. The Flavour Thesaurus uses a flavour wheel to categorise different ingredients and then shows what combinations work and why. Lateral Cooking shows the links between cooking techniques and uses research from other cookbooks to explain how modifications can be made. There is a great interview with Niki on the Honey and Co Podcast where she explains the premise and work behind each book really well. These two books are probably the most used of my cooking reference books, they are filled with the answers to my questions and Lateral Cooking in particular is super useful for basic recipes and adapting recipes.

2. Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat - This list wouldn't be complete without Samin's super popular book! Samin shows us how salt, fat, acid and heat are the four main elements of cooking. This is a really worthwhile book to have, and there are some great interviews with Samin where she discusses her book on Radio Cherry Bombe and the Honey and Co Podcast. 

3. I also really love books like Citrus by Catherine Phipps, where one category of ingredient is the theme of the whole book. In Citrus, Catherine gives information about well and lesser known citrus and a whole variety of recipes in which they can be used. These types of books are great if you want to know more about a particular ingredient or often have an abundance of that ingredient. 

4. Books such as Pasta by Antonio Carluccio and Patisserie by Dupius and Cazor are great for getting an in depth look at a particular cooking technique or style. I love Antonio Carluccio's book Pasta, as it has some great tips for making pasta, different recipes and accompaniments for the pasta you've made. Books like Patisserie are great when you want to perfect skills that you may not use regularly in the kitchen. Both books have great step by step photos, and Patisserie has excellent illustrations of each dessert showing the layers and elements of each.

5. Finally, I love books such as Gastronomy of Italy by Anne Del Conte, Maggie's Harvest by Maggie Beer and How to Eat by Nigella Lawson as they are the kind of book you can use as a thesaurus to explain how to use particular ingredient or cook a particular type of dish. None of these books have many photos as they are heavy on useful information and I often use them when I have come across a particular ingredient and need some ideas as to how to cook it. I have found Maggie’s Harvest particularly useful when I am searching for ideas on how to cook a slightly less common ingredient such as duck eggs or zucchini flowers and Nigella’s book is really useful for those simple yet endlessly useful recipes like homemade stocks.

Fluffy Bergamot Cake with Buttermilk

This cake came about in the same way many others do in my kitchen. I had certain ingredients to use, and I really just wanted to bake something quick and easy that was also going to be very tasty. 

I have a few homegrown bergamots and some bought ones too at the moment, so I am constantly thinking about how I could use them. I love bergamot season, it is honestly my favourite citrus. I love the floral notes of it, and how it has the ability to lift a dish or a cake to another level flavour wise. 

I also had some Pepe Saya Buttermilk. I made an online order with Pepe Saya, as many other Sydney-siders when Pepe Saya offered 20% off for those of us in lockdown. I really like baking with this buttermilk, but I also like using it as I like having a dedicated milk to use for baking. This way the milk bought for tea and cereal etc won’t get used up as quickly as I’m not using it for baking. Which is helpful particularly as we are still in lockdown, and unnecessary trips to the shops and just well, unnecessary. 

I had planned to use some of the buttermilk for baking, and freeze any leftover for future use. However after making this particular bergamot cake once, I now have so many ideas for using it I’m not sure any will end up frozen. 

The bergamot cake is a little different to the other citrus cakes I usually make as I often make citrus cakes with an oil based recipe that uses yoghurt. I love cakes made this way as they are simple, reliable and tasty. This new Bergamot cake is still those things, however the texture mostly thanks to the buttermilk, its so fluffy it seems like a cake you’ve put a lot more effort into. 

I also think the lightness comes from the fact that I mostly bake with margarine rather than butter. Pretty much all my recipes say to use butter, as I know that’s what most people will use when baking. But I much prefer the lightness that a good margarine can give a cake. Whatever you use, it will still be a good cake and a nice fluffy one if you use buttermilk. 

I used a rectangular cake/slice tin for this cake as baking it in this shape will mean a quicker cook time. But you can of course use a 20cm round tin, however the cook time will be at least double what is stipulated in the recipe. 

Fluffy Bergamot Cake with Buttermilk

Ingredients: 

125g unsalted butter, softened or flavourless margarine*

165g caster sugar

finely grated zest of one bergamot/lemon

2 eggs 

250g self raising flour

125ml buttermilk (e.g. Pepe Saya)

Ingredients for the Icing: 

170g icing mixture

1-2 tbsp fresh bergamot/lemon juice

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a 30x20cm rectangular slice or lamington tin with baking paper. 

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and zest with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the flour and the buttermilk and slowly mix until combined. If the mixture is a little lump, mix using a whisk.

Tip the mixture into the prepared tray and smooth the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the cake spring backs when touched lightly and a skewer comes out clean. The cake will be lightly golden when done. Allow the cake to cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, mix 1 tbsp of the bergamot/lemon juice with the icing mixture in a medium bowl. Continue to add more juice, a little at a time until you have a smooth icing that you can spread over the cake - a slightly thinner consistency is good for this cake as there is more surface area to spread over, if the icing is too thick it might not cover the entire cake!

*if using margarine, use straight from the fridge no need to soften like butter. 

Simple Choc Orange Sheet Cake

Do you ever bake, just to use a particular ingredient up? Like if the ingredient goes to waste, you’ve failed some kind of kitchen based test?

Sometimes much of my baking is inspired by a tub of yoghurt nearing the end of its life, eggs that need to be used as I over estimated how much I would actually be able to bake or an in season fruit I can’t stand to waste since it’s at its best right now and it would just be rude for it to end up in the bin. 

This chocolate orange cake came about for just that kind of reason. I got a big delivery of citrus later last month, and while I was more interested in the yuzu and bergamots, it also came with some oranges and mandarins. I don’t eat either of these citrus as they make me quite unwell so I had to come up with an idea to use some of them - as even though I don’t eat them, I still don’t want them to go to waste. 

Since I also have a very large supply of cocoa for someone who can’t eat chocolate, I decided to make the ultimate cake that I would never be able to eat - a chocolate and orange cake*! I am told it tastes like Jaffa (a choc orange lolly/candy common in Australia and New Zealand), which is exactly what I was going for. It’s based on the Chocolate Sheet Cake from my cookbook Everyday Bakes, and the recipe is below if you feel like a choc orange inspired bake!

*no cake was harmed during the development of this recipe - it was largely gifted to a good friend who I am glad to say hasn’t got sick of me offloading baked goods onto her and her family. They also took some of the citrus I couldn’t eat, and I now feel like the kitchen test of not wasting food has been passed for another week. Phew!

Chocolate Orange Sheet Cake

Ingredients: 

125g unsalted butter, softened

165g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

finely grated zest of one orange

2 eggs 

230g self raising flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

135g Greek style yoghurt 

Ingredients for the Icing: 

170g icing mixture

1-2 tbsp fresh orange juice

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a 30x20cm rectangular slice or lamington tin with baking paper. 

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour and cocoa powder, then set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and orange zest until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the flour and the yoghurt and slowly mix until combined.

Tip the mixture into the prepared tray and smooth the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the cake spring backs when touched lightly and a skewer comes out clean. The cake will be lightly golden when done. Allow the cake to cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, mix 1 tbsp of the orange juice with the icing mixture in a medium bowl. Continue to add more orange juice, a little at a time until you have a smooth icing that you can spread over the cake - a slightly thinner consistency is good for this cake as there is more surface area to spread over, if the icing is too thick it might not cover the entire cake!

The big delivery of citrus I bought featuring blood limes, limes, bergamot, yuzu, lemons, mardarins, oranges, a buddhas hand and custard apple.

Off The Shelf - 'Citrus' by Catherine Phipps

Bought at: Gleebooks, Glebe (Sydney) on one of the many visits I made the to the store seeking calm and distraction while I worked nearby. 

Recipes Made: Bergamot and Lemon Roast Chicken p.103, Classic Lemon Tart p.168 and Lemon Curd p.244. 

I made the Bergamot and Lemon Roast Chicken when we had bergamots in season, and I think I may have roasted the chicken with half a bergamot inside the chicken too (not that the recipe says to do so), purely just to enjoy the bergamots even more. I really liked that this recipe used vermouth, which has such a wonderful fragrant smell whilst cooking, and while my gravy didn’t look much (maybe all gravy is just an ugly brown colour yet filled with flavour?), it did taste great! 

Bergamot and Lemon Roast Chicken ready for the oven

I made the Classic Lemon Tart with a mixture of homegrown bergamots, homegrown lemonades and lemons. I really liked the flavour of the tart and I liked that the pastry didn’t require using a food processor too. My filling cooked with a few bubbles on top from whisking it all up, probably because I didn’t use the right kind of cream - I used pouring rather than heavy cream , and I ended up with so much filling left over I made another only slightly smaller tart! Next time I will definitely be using heavy cream! I wrote a blog post about this recipe, and how I first heard about this book which you can find here. 

Classic Lemon Tart made with lemon, bergamot and lemonades

Last year I found yuzu in my local green grocer for the first time, so I bought a couple and then had to decide what to do with them. This book being my bible on what to do with citrus, I decided on making Catherine’s recipe for Lemon Curd with them, which she suggests as a good substitute for lemons in the introduction to the recipe. I really liked this curd recipe, it produced a lovely consistency of curd and it firmed up even more once it was refrigerated. I used the curd to fill mini tarts, as shown in this blog post. 

Lemon Curd made with Yuzu

Favourite Things About the Book: I really love the focus on just one type of food in this book. The beginning of the book has an explanation of all types of citrus, from lemons and limes, to yuzu and finger limes. I especially love that the book contains much about bergamots, which I love and had not long started growing when I purchased the book. I refer to this book, and the introductory sections in particular, a lot when I find unusual types of citrus or want to know more about what I could use as a substitute. Catherine also details how to dry citrus, freeze, candy and much more. There is basically every recipe you will ever need for cooking or baking with citrus in here, and the cover is a lovely marbled yellow fabric that feels wonderful to the touch (even if I do stress about getting such lovely cookbook covers dirty when I am using them in the kitchen!). 

Bookmarked Recipes (to make later!): Bergamot and Rose Turkish Delight Pavlova p.166, Earl Grey and Rose Parfait p.178, Quince, Clementine and Rose Jelly p.225 and Turkish Delight p.226. 

Yuzu Curd

This recipe came about because I found fresh yuzu in my local fruit market and I needed something to make with them! I had never seen fresh yuzu before, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy some. 

Considering I only bought two (they were quite expensive!), this curd turned out to be the perfect thing to make. I used some of it to fill some mini tarts with (using this cheats pastry recipe). I still have some curd left, and have dreams of making Flour and Stone’s Lemon Dream cake with it. We’ll see if time permits with that one. 

Bottled yuzu juice could also be used for this recipe, or another citrus entirely! 

The recipe comes from Catherine Phipps’ book Citrus, which I turn to for all my citrus questions and when I have something unusual like yuzu to use - I highly recommend it.

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Yuzu Curd

Ingredients: 

200ml yuzu juice (approx. 2 large yuzu)

finely grated zest of two yuzu (if using fresh yuzu)

150g caster sugar

125g unsalted butter

2 eggs

3 egg yolks 

Method: 

Place all the ingredients into a medium saucepan and place over low heat. Stir often until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted. 

Continue to cook over low heat, stirring constantly for about 20-30 minutes, or until the curd has thickened (it should coat the back of your spoon). 

Remove from the heat and pour through a fine sieve into another bowl. 

Store in sterilised glass jars (about 2 medium sized jars), and leave to cool at room temperature. Once cooled, store in the fridge for 2-3 weeks. 

Makes approx. 530g.

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Reference: ‘Citrus - Recipes That Celebrate The Sour and The Sweet’ by Catherine Phipps (Quadrille Publishing, 2017), p.224.

Yuzu Curd Tart with Crushed Freeze Dried Raspberry