2024 food trends
Hello, happy new year and welcome to Newsletter No 11 here on Substack! Thank you for stopping by. Grab a seat if you are interested in recipes as well as tips and tricks to make the most of our increasingly eclectic pantries - and make sure you hit that subscribe button if you don’t want to miss any future posts!
Today‘s post is a quick one (and no worries, you will be getting a new recipe this week!) but after reading one too many 2024 food trend listicles, doing a Google Trends deep-dive on a long drive through the Romanian countryside and some reflecting on what 2023 brought in terms of new flavours and pastries, I could not resist sharing my highly subjective list of what I expect to be this year’s 5 top food trends for those sweet-toothed among us:
Sumac will be increasingly present in desserts
At the end of 2023 both Susan Spungen and Ottolenghi shared recipes featuring Sumac (for some shortbread with sumac and for a twist on traditional Danish rice pudding with sumac cherry compote). Given the popularity of Spungen and the well-known „Ottolenghi effect“ (i.e. the ripple effect Ottolenghi and the popularity of his delis, restaurants and cookbooks has had on what ingredients we buy and experiment with), I fully expect to see more and more desserts featuring sumac this year.
A firm personal favourite are strawberries macerated in sumac - as a component for a strawberry tiramisu-ish as shown here at the top, to top some porridge or simply eaten on their own.
Mahleb will go mainstream
Apparently there has been a 550% increase in searches for Mahleb this past year so if that’s anything to go by I expect Mahleb to finally go mainstream in 2024. The kernel of the St. Lucie cherry, Mahleb is already commonly used in baked goods across Greece, Turkey and much of the Middle East. A flavour reminiscent of bitter almonds but fruitier and more floral it works anywhere you might typically use almond extract such as in this nutty and fragrant Malhleb Muhallabiah with a Sourcherry compote.
Fig leaf flavoured baked goods will become increasingly common
Thanks to a mild obsession with the scent and flavour of fig leaves I still know the location of all the fig trees in my old neighbourhood in London. And close to 10 years later I also know exactly where to get my fig leaf fix in Brussels if I fancy making fig leaf panna cotta or fig leaf flavoured cakes and desserts. However, 2023 was the first year that I started seeing fig leaf flavoured baked goods at bakeries here in Brussels. There was an outrageously good fig leaf Bostock at Khobz during the summer and a fig leaf almond croissant at Goods. And seemingly just to prove my point: Khobz just announced a fig leaf frangipane Galette des Rois!
Preserved Lemons will have their moment in desserts
Salty, tangy and intensely perfumed, it would be a waste to limit the use of preserved lemons to savoury cooking. Alison Roman just recently shared the recipe for a Salty Lemon Shortbread noting how the preserved lemons add a “jammy, salty, floral bop” to the already plenty lemony shortbread and I can only imagine how delicious that shortbread is.
Beyond cookies, I suspect we’ll start seeing preserved lemons show up in many places, to start with probably as a way to add an extra dimension to lemon flavoured desserts (think preserved lemon meringue pie for example). I for one will take this as my cue to bake another one of my Preserved Lemon Drizzle Loaves.
Desserts will become spicy!
While chocolate and chili is a well-established combination we haven’t seen all that many cakes or desserts beyond that bringing a bit of heat. I suspect that is about to change. The popularity of hot honey means many of us are already familiar with sweet and spicy things (and in fact many parts of the world already have plenty of spicy sweets - just think of all the spicey Mexican sweets!). And now that we are starting to increasingly see recipes like Eric Kim’s Gochujang Caramel Cookies or Fly By Jing’s Chili Crisp Chocolate Chip Cookies, I’m not sure there is any hot condiment or spice mix that is safe from being experimented with!
What do you think will be this year’s food trends? And what would you like to see more of (or even see less of?)