How to recreate dishes from the World's Longest Brunch

The World's Longest Lunch has been a sold-out hit at the annual Melbourne Food and Wine Festival for many years. Organisers wanted to find a way to open it up to (even) more people. And in one of the world's greatest cafe cities, staging the World's Longest Brunch made perfect sense – Melbourne brunches with the best of them. Here are two of the dishes guests enjoyed, courtesy of Kate Reid of Lune and Nathan Toleman of the Mulberry Group.

Lune's bread-and-butter croissant pudding with labne, blackberry compote and granola crumble

Kate Reid, of cult Melbourne croissanterie Lune, combines something healthy and everyday with something incredibly decadent in this brunch-as-dessert showstopper.

INGREDIENTS

• 6 x day-old croissants
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• vanilla sugar, labne or yoghurt, blackberry compote and granola crumble to serve

Blackberry compote

• 500g frozen blackberries
• 50g sugar

Granola crumble

• 3 cups muesli
• 75g self-raising flour
• 75g plain flour
• 60g desiccated coconut
• ½ cup raw sugar
• 160g butter
• 90g golden syrup
• 2 tbsp boiling water
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

METHOD

1. To make the blackberry compote, mix fruit and sugar together in large heatproof bowl, cover tightly with cling film, and place over double boiler on low for about 30 minutes. You want the berries still somewhat holding their shape and the liquid to have thickened slightly. Strain the berries without pressing them, reserving the liquid. Set both aside.
2. To make the granola crumble, preheat oven to 155C fan-forced (175C conventional). Combine muesli, sifted flours, coconut and sugar in a bowl.
3. Melt butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan or in the microwave (60 seconds to start, then 30-second intervals until completely melted) and stir to combine. Dissolve bicarb soda in boiling water and add to the butter and golden syrup mix.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir well until combined. Sprinkle mixture in small, clumps onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.
5. Bake until deep golden, about 8 minutes. After baking, break up into small uneven crumbs. Leave to cool at room temperature.
6. To make the pudding, tear the croissants roughly and arrange the pieces in a 24cm x 12cm loaf tin greased and lined with baking paper.
7. Whisk eggs, milk, vanilla and sugar in a bowl. Pour the egg mixture over the croissants and let stand for at least 1 hour to allow the croissants to soak up the liquid.
8. Preheat the oven to 160C fan-forced (180C conventional). Bake pudding for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool before turning out of the tin.
9. To assemble: cut the pudding into thick slices. Melt a generous knob of butter in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. When the butter starts to foam, add a slice of pudding to the pan, turning and cooking on all sides until golden. Dust with vanilla sugar.
10. To serve, place the pudding on a plate, dollop on a tablespoon or two of labne or yoghurt, and a tablespoon of blackberry compote. Drizzle with the reserved blackberry cooking liquid, scatter with a tablespoon or two of granola crumble and serve.

Serves: 10-12

Avocado toast with feta, radish and beetroot

Nathan Toleman has served some striking (and controversial) takes on avo toast over the years at the likes of The Kettle Black and Liminal, but this recipe, created by his wife, Sarah Foletta, remains a favourite.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 pieces of bread, either sourdough or multigrain
• 1 large ripe avocado
• 2 tbsp olive oil-marinated feta (and a teaspoon of the oil from the jar)
• 1 baby beetroot, thinly sliced
• 1 small radish, thinly sliced
• 1 purple shallot, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp chives, sliced into batons
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 tbsp pepitas, toasted or fresh
• finger lime pearls, to garnish
• sea salt, black pepper and olive oil to garnish

METHOD

1. Toast the bread until it's golden.
2. Roughly crush the avocado in a small bowl, then spoon it onto the toast.
3. Place feta on top of the avocado, breaking into largish pieces. Drizzle a few drops of the feta oil over it, and add a sprinkle of sea salt.
4. Arrange the slices of beetroot and radish, shallots and chives on the feta, and sprinkle them with the chia seeds and pepitas. Finally, scatter the finger lime on top.
5. Season with sea salt and black pepper and garnish with a few drops of olive oil.

Serves: 2