This may be the best smelling thing that I have ever made.
I am not usually someone who gets particularly excited about the smell of baked goods. Most people seem to agree that the aroma of freshly baked bread is one of life's greatest pleasures but I was always the slightly strange child who preferred the smell of the butcher's shop to the bakery. Give me the heady fragrance of gently cooking onions and garlic over brown butter any day. The smell of a chicken roasting in the oven makes me far hungrier than that of a chocolate cake.
Last Saturday was one of those days which can only mark the start of a holiday weekend in that it rained all day with a varying degree of intensity. Apart from a brief trip to the shops when the rain was only torrential as opposed to apocalyptic, we decided to hole up in our flat and make the most of a day at home. I pottered around, occupied by various pleasingly mundane tasks - sorting out a couple of cupboards, changing the sheets in the spare room, a couple of loads of washing.
In between, I decided to try my hand at Bruno Loubet's tarte au sucre, a recipe from his recently published cookbook, Mange Tout, which I'd spent a happy couple of hours browsing at my parents' house. We are also, incidentally, eating at his newest restaurant Grain Store tonight and I'm not sure if more excited about the cocktail menu (pumpkin and maple syrup bellini! butter and hay champagne!) or the dessert menu (strawberry and balsamic jam with horseradish ice cream! spiced candied tomatoes with goat's milk panna cotta!).
But, back to the tarte au sucre.
This version of a tarte au sucre has a rich brioche base, enriched with plenty of butter and egg yolks. There is a touch of sugar in the dough but really, the yeasty flavour of the bread is the star, developed by ample resting time in the fridge. One suitably tasty, the brioche is topped with a thick layer of creme fraiche, two types of sugar and lemon zest. When fresh out the oven, it's a sticky, sweet and sharp jumble of flavours. When it cools, it's not unlike a lemon drizzle cake with its crackling sugar topping. We ate slice after slice without any adornment but the recipe recommends a dollop of good jam. I also think that some gently cooked fruit (like these warm stone fruits from sprouted kitchen) would be a pretty perfect accompaniment.
The really memorable thing though was just how good it smelt. I let the warmed yeast and milk mixture rise in a cupboard and soon, that toasty sweetness filled every corner of our flat. Every time I walked past, I opened the door just so that I could have another sniff. When I took it out of the oven a couple of hours later, all puffy and golden brown, I realised that everyone was right about the smell of freshly baked bread.
As the only change I made was to use spelt flour rather than plain flour, I haven't included it here. It's available in Bruno Loubet's cookbook Mange Tout and has also been printed online. The recipe uses a stand mixer. I imagine you could make it by hand (after all, people have been making brioche for a lot longer than stand mixers have been in existence) but the dough will be fairly messy. It would be good fun though.