Savory Olive and Sweet Corn Loaf

Oven Hot Spots, Mango Cardamom Flan, plus a Special Offer!🎂✨

Welcome to The Flavor Files! 🎉This is where my love for cooking, flavor, and food science all come together—because delicious food is even better when you understand a little of the magic behind it.

Looking for more recipes? You’ll find them all at Nik Sharma Cooks.Still need a copy of my latest cookbook, Veg-Table? You can grab it here—it’s filled with veggie-driven inspiration. 🌱✨

You might spot a few affiliate links sprinkled throughout this newsletter; they help keep the spice—and the science—flowing.

Now, let’s dive in. 🔥

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Hello Friends,

My birthday is coming up next week.
And as I was thinking about how I wanted to celebrate, I kept coming back to this space—this little community we've built together through curiosity, food, flavor, and a lot of heart.

To thank you and invite more of you into this growing circle, I’m offering 20% off all annual subscriptions now through May 3, 2025.

If you’ve been here a while, you know this newsletter isn’t just about recipes or science experiments in the kitchen. It’s about creating a place where we can slow down, savor the details, and maybe find a little more wonder in the everyday.

Thank you for reading, supporting, and being part of this journey with me. It means more than you know.

Lately, I’ve found myself baking again. Maybe it’s because I just turned in my new cookbook's first round of edits. Perhaps it’s because my birthday is coming up next week. Or maybe it’s just because baking feels like a kind of homecoming.

I miss the quiet rhythm of the patisserie days, the way we made something with our hands, something meant purely for someone else’s joy. What don’t I miss? Making the same thing every day. No tweaking, no experimenting, no "what if I added just a little more cardamom?"; just a strict devotion to the same recipe, day after day, like a pastry-driven version of Groundhog Day.

In a fit of what I can only call "productive procrastination," I cleaned out my baking tools. If I hadn’t used them in a while, they got donated. The same is true with my cookbooks, especially the ones that gather dust for four years or more. What stayed? My science books, my baking books, and the ones that remind me why I started doing this in the first place.

And because no good cleaning spree is complete without a small existential crisis, I decided to test my oven for hot spots. (I’ve talked about why knowing your oven’s true temperature is essential. This is that, but nerdier.)

Is Your Oven Lying To You?

Here’s how you do it:

Take an inexpensive loaf of white sandwich bread.

Preheat your oven to 350°F [180°C], but don’t stop there—let it keep heating for an extra 30 minutes. Ovens are like moody artists; they need a little extra time to get their act together. Once it’s good and ready, spread the bread slices across the racks you use most often and bake for 15 minutes.

Where do the slices brown the fastest? That’s where your oven’s hot spots are, usually near the top, bottom, and sides.

Happily (and somewhat smugly), my Thermador passed with flying colors. No hot spots. I suspected it for a while, the even browning, the fact that I can occasionally forget to rotate a pan and still get a beautiful bake.

If your oven does have hot spots (and you’re not alone if it does), don’t panic. Rotate your pans halfway through cooking. Switch them between racks if you’re baking more than one sheet at a time. Move them from front to back. Use your common sense. Do everything you can to allow your food to cook and brown evenly.

It’s not about achieving perfection. It’s about giving yourself the best conditions to create something a little magical. (And maybe having a few slices of test toast to nibble on afterward.)

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A few days ago, something I’ve been waiting for finally showed up at my door—the new Ooni Halo Pro Spiral Mixer. I don’t usually get this excited over kitchen appliances (okay, maybe sometimes), but this one felt different. It’s built to take on the kind of dough that usually makes my stand mixers rattle and groan—the dense, elastic kind you need for good bread or pizza.

With my other mixers, the moment the gluten develops and the dough tightens up, you can almost hear them struggling. The dough climbs the spiral hook, the machine wobbles, and I end up wrestling it by hand. But this mixer was made for that fight. The Halo Pro features a rotating 7.3 quart stainless steel bowl and a spiral dough hook, providing dual-kneading action. The patent-pending removable breaker bar is a standout feature, which prevents dough from riding up the hook, ensuring efficiency and even mixing. This little clip will show you what I mean (I’m making Neapolitan pizza dough).

What surprised me most, though, is how versatile it is. It’s not just a bread machine. This mixer includes a flexible beater and a geared whisk, allowing for making buttercream frostings and cakes (I’ve yet to test this out, so stay tuned). The intuitive control panel on top offers 58 speed settings ranging from 60 to over 1,000 RPMs and includes a timer function.

It’s rare when a new tool feels like it actually understands the work you’re trying to do in the kitchen. This one does. And I’m excited to see what else it can handle.

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As we enter the auspicious season of mangoes and my birthday, make this mango cardamom flan. It’s one of my favorite treats. This recipe is free to all members.

abrowntable

A post shared by @abrowntable

For my paid subscribers, we’re making a savory loaf inspired by a trip to the South of France. It’s great for breakfast, but honestly, it’s great at any meal. 

Savory Olive and Sweet Corn Loaf

In Provence, mornings stretch long and slow, stitched together by the scent of coffee, the chatter of markets, and the sight of savory loaves stacked in bakery windows. Last summer, I made a quiet promise to myself to bring a little of that feeling home and to you.

This loaf is my way of keeping that promise. I use dried herbs because they carry a sharper, clearer flavor, an anchor in a tender, rich crumb. Instead of the old method of tossing the olives, corn, and cheese separately, I fold them straight into the dry ingredients; sometimes the easiest way is the best way. Toasted and slathered with salted butter, a slice feels both indulgent and honest, flavorful food that reminds you where you are, and maybe, where you still dream of going.