Melbourne lost a real one when Natalie Paull closed her hit North Melbourne patisserie Beatrix Bakes back in 2022, but the legend lives on through Paull’s cookbooks and her fantastic bakes, cakes and sweet treats that you can make in your own home.
Paull has just released Sweet Heart, a collection of recipes that each balance the star baker’s signature brand of precision, generosity and whimsy. And the best part? For many of them – including the fluffy-as-ever chocolate mousse and the banana crunch cake – all you’ll need is a hand beater and a can-do attitude to bring the magic of Beatrix Bakes back to life.
I wrote Sweet Heart at my kitchen counter at home, laptop balanced on a plastic tub of bakers flours with a cup of strong earl grey tea going cold beside me. I’d spent so many years baking in stainless steel, giant whirring oven spaces that it was wonderful to create softly and surely at home. Writing this book was my way of finally coming back home with my craft. Some of it came easily, entire recipes written quickly with only a few tinkering tests. Other parts, took months before I could get the words and weights right.
The main thing I learned writing it was that creativity doesn’t move in a straight line, and I needed to stop expecting it to. The final book moved so far and so beautifully from the first concept based on the classic bakebook format: tarts, cakes, cookies etc. Instead I kept circling the idea of baking for out cravings and at first I resisted. When I gave into the concept I couldn’t let go of, the real flow started. Writing this book taught me that the circling was the work—that ideas need to be left half-finished sometimes so they can keep developing somewhere you’re not watching.
If you take one thing from this book, it should be the (almost) no bake cheesecake from the Creamy chapter with its easy creamy filling and cardamom-scented crumb crust. It is a perfect slice for me with seasonal fruit. Or the darkness devil’s food cake which you can just bake the cake part of and eat simply.
But I’d also love it if you tried the roasted strawberry and tahini Paris-Brests. They are a little more theatrical, a little riskier, and it’s the recipe I’m proudest of in the whole book – it took me the longest to get right and balance the terrestrial tahini with the tangy strawberries and it still makes people close their eyes the first time they taste it.
If you’re a relatively new cook, give the citrus bars a try. They’re pretty forgiving and it teaches you the basics of baking pastry without needing a rolling pin or tart tin. Once you’ve made it a few times, you’ll understand wrangling temperatures, confidence will be built and you’ll be busting out bigger bakes in no time.
If you’re looking to extend yourself a bit more, meanwhile, try the passionfruit and coconut bombe Alaska in the Tart’n’Tangy chapter. It’s a proper project of a re-imagined a classic. Making a no-churn ice cream folded with crisp coconut cookies and covering it all with Italian meringue. Then torch. I recently made a metre-long version for my friend Kati’s birthday. It was epic making and eating.
When you’ve finished reading Sweet Heart I hope you’ll feel like you have a new suite of sweet recipes, fall in love with your kitchen and turn to it to meet your sweet cravings. I hope you’ll bake something with or for someone you love.
Images and text from Sweet Heart by Natalie Paull, photography by Rochelle Eagle. Murdoch Books RRP $49.99. Sweet Heart is out now and available at excellent independent Victorian bookstores such as Readings, Books for Cooks and Hill of Content.