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World Baking Day – Rustic Nut Pie

20 May 2013 in Baking

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Not being the most proficient baker I decided I was going to pass on World Baking Day, but being of weak character I allowed myself to be persuaded by my friend Chantelle to join the fun, and I am glad I did. After much perusal of the 100 different recipes number 1 being the easiest and 100 being the most difficult, I decided on a South African recipe by Monique Davis.

Rustic Nut Tart (click to be taken to the recipe)

Instead of walnuts and hazelnuts I used pecans and macadamia nuts, otherwise I stuck to the recipe.  I was very pleased with the resultant tart and we ate it with some homemade vanilla inc cream. Himself and I both agreed that there were too many nuts and when I make it again I will certainly cut down on the amount, the pastry was particularly good, I’ve never used cream in a pastry before.

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Easy to make, cherry yogurt pie

20 November 2012 in Baking, Easy to prepare, Economical

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Before you turn-tail thinking this dessert looks too difficult, ask yourself the following questions:

Can you open a tin, a packet of biscuits, and a tub of yogurt? I’m not kidding, this pud is a piece of the proverbial urine!

I was given this recipe by my friend Chantelle, who sadly doesn’t blog anymore. Normally I make it in my round pyrex glass pie dish, but regular readers will know that I recently bought myself a posh rectangular loose bottomed tin.  Also I had a jar of pitted cherries lurking in my cupboard crying out to be used. You could use any fruit, fresh, canned, bottled, or nothing at all, it’s delicious all by itself.

Don’t ask me how this recipe sets, I have no explanation, but the 10 minutes in the oven is all it takes, trust me.

1 pkt tennis biscuits, crushed

125g melted butter

500ml yoghurt – flavour of your choice

1 tin condensed milk

Fresh fruit, tinned fruit or bottled fruit for topping (optional)

1/2 pack jelly – flavour of your choice

1/2 cup (125 ml) boiling water or juice from tinned or bottled fruit heated.

***

Heat your oven to 180c

Grease/spray your tart container

Mix the melted butter and the crushed biscuits, form a base in your container and place in the fridge for 15/20 minutes to firm up.

Mix yogurt and condensed milk together in a bowl and pour over chilled biscuit base.

Place in the oven for 10 minutes only.

Take out of the oven and cool in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Mix half the jelly with your 125 ml boiling liquid, allow to cool, but not too much. It mustn’t be set, just gloopy.

Place your fruit on your tart and using a spoon carefully drizzle the jelly over the fruit, put back in the fridge until set, and that’s it. Told you it was easy!

 

 

 

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Old Fashioned Cream Swiss Roll

29 October 2012 in Baking, Desserts, Easy to prepare, Economical

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Whenever I go to England there is one shop I never fail to visit and that’s Lakeland. I can spend hours and many English pounds there very easily. One of the items I bought on this last visit was this….

 

Initially I was going to use it to neaten up the family favourite pud of rolled pavlova and then I realized that I have never ever made a Swiss Roll. I was surprised at how easy it was and even with the purchase of a tub of cream, how economical. Add a fruit coulis and you’ve got a perfectly acceptable dessert that will go a long way.

I used a recipe from The Blue Ribbon Book that I’ve had for years.

Swiss Roll

 4 XL eggs separated

2/3 cup (165 ml) castor sugar

4 Tsp (50 ml) water

1 cup (250 ml) self raising flour

Pinch of salt

Jam – strawberry or raspberry are best for this

1 x 250 ml tub of fresh cream – whipped (The cream is optional, the original recipe just used jam…..boring!)

***

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Line a swiss roll tin (30cm x 20cm, mine was slightly bigger but it still worked)

Whisk egg-yolks until thick (about a minute) then gradually add the castor sugar, whisking all the time.

Add the cold water and continue mixing.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff, but not too stiff and add them alternatively with the sifted dry ingredients to the egg mixture, fold in gently.

Pour the mixture onto your tin, smooth it out and bake for 20 minutes.

Turn out immediately onto baking paper sprinkled with castor sugar.

Peel off your paper lining and roll up cake with another piece of paper in between to make a roll.

Cover with a damp cloth and cool slightly.

Unroll and spread with jam and then the whipped cream.

Roll up again and allow to cool on a cooling rack.

Trim the ends for presentation – cooks perks!

Dust lightly with icing sugar.

 

 

 

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Easy Cheesey Bread

10 September 2012 in Baking, Easy to prepare

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I know I’ve been scarce, there is a reason for that, but it’s not one I can share with you…..yet! *taps the side of her nose* Plus tomorrow I fly to England to visit  the parentals, so it’s all go at the moment. I have been watching the falling temperatures over there with dismay, I was hoping they would save some summer for me.

This is a great bread, you can ring the changes by adding herbs and cheeses of your choice, next time I want to add some caramelised onions. I chose to make a damper but you can also bake it in a loaf tin.

Easy Cheesey Bread

500g Self raising flour

1.5 tsp (7.5 ml) salt

150g mature cheddar – cut into small cubes (about 1/2 cm square)

500ml buttermilk

Water

Pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds for the top

***

Heat your oven to 180 degrees centigrade and grease a baking tray/loaf tin.

Sift the flour and the salt into a large bowl.

Add the cubed cheese and give it a stir.

Pour in the buttermilk and mix, if it needs help add a little water (there is no need to knead the bread)

Shape into a round and portion it by cutting into the top with a sharp knife, sprinkle on the seeds.

Bake for an hour, you can test to see if it’s done by inserting a skewer and if it comes out clean and the bread sounds hollow when you tap it, then it’s done.

This recipe was given to me by my friend Anne, I have adapted it slightly, visit her website here for some more great recipes.

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Easy cupcakes

19 August 2012 in Baking, Cheap and cheerful, Easy to prepare

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This is a very versatile recipe, it can be a loaf cake, a lemon cake or simple but delicious cupcakes.

Cupcakes

 1½ cups (375 ml) cake flour

1 cup (250 ml) sugar

2 tsp (10 ml) baking powder

a pinch of salt

125g softened butter

2 eggs

5ml Vanilla Essence/Extract

½ cup (125 ml) of milk

***

Preheat oven to 175 degrees centigrade.

Grease a muffin tray, or use paper muffin cases.

Place all the ingredients in a bowl – yes, that’s right, all of them!

Beat for 3 minutes on high.

Spoon into the muffin cases.

Bake for 25 minutes or until risen and golden brown.

Allow to cool*

Makes 12 muffin sized cupcakes

*As soon as you take the cakes out of the oven, place them onto cooling racks, if you leave them in the muffin tins to cool the paper cases tend to come away from the sides of the cake.

1/2 cup Icing Sugar

1 Tbsp water

Sift the icing sugar into and bowl and mix in the water

Now my icing skills leave a lot to be desired, so I just drizzle zig-zag lines over the cakes…works for me! If you want to ice them completely then you need to make more icing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Economical Chocolate Bread Pudding -feeds 6 for under R15.00

1 August 2012 in Baking, Cheap and cheerful, Desserts, Easy to prepare

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I was recently given this recipe (thanks Dominque) and incorrectly assumed that it would be your usual bread-and-butter-type pudding, how wrong was I?! This is a great pud for the family  it uses everyday ingredients that we all have in our cupboards and it is both economical and easy to make, it ticks all the boxes.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

500mls of milk

6 slices of bread cubed

125ml sugar

85ml cocoa

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

30ml softened butter

5ml vanilla

2 egg whites, beaten to stiff peaks

***

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and grease a 20cm (8 inch) square dish

Put the milk into a saucepan and bring to the boil, remove from heat

Add the bread cubes and whisk until quite smooth (I used my mixer)

Add sugar, cocoa and yolks, mix well

Add butter and vanilla

Fold in the egg whites

Pour into your dish

Place inside a bigger dish with boiling water, the water needs to come about halfway up the smaller dish

Bake for 30 minutes or until firm

Serve with custard, cream or ice cream

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EASY TO MAKE – FRESH LEMON CAKE

24 July 2012 in Baking, Cheap and cheerful, Easy to prepare

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This cake is an old favourite of mine with a new twist.

To see the original step-by-step recipe click here. It’s one of those where you chuck everything into a bowl and mix, happy days!

I decided to change it a little for two reasons, one, Himself kept looking meaningfully at the ever increasing pile of lemons from our two trees and Jeanne from Cook Sister is hosting a  very special Monthly Mingle and I thought I would like to join in.

Easy Lemon Cake

1.5 cups cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 cup castor sugar

125g softened butter

2 room temperature eggs

1/3 cup of milk

1.5 TBSP fresh lemon juice

1 tsp grated lemon zest

(Please note 1 cup = 250mls)

*****

Heat your oven to 160 degrees

Grease or spray a loaf tin or line with baking paper.

Put all the above ingredients into a bowl and mix on high for 3 minutes, if you think the mix is too stiff you can add a little more milk.

Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for 45 mins or until risen and golden.

Cool and ice as you desire, rather than a butter icing I opted for the more simple option of mixing a little icing sugar with some more lemon juice and drizzling it over, topping with a little more lemon zest.

This resulted in a lovely moist tangy cake.

 

MonthlyMingleBanner July2012[9]

 

 

 

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Food 24′s Easy Step-by-Step Meringues

4 July 2012 in Baking, Cheap and cheerful

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Last Friday our daughter pranged her car, she’s fine but the vehicle isn’t and so Princess Gilly is swanning around in my wheels and I’m stuck at home. Because I work from our house nobody seems to think it might be a problem for me *rolls eyes* Myself and my credit card are suffering from cabin fever,

Which might explain why I made meringues, which I didn’t even know how to spell and I have a bad track record for. On Food24′s home page today there was a step-by-step recipe for them and as I had two egg whites in the fridge I thought I’d give it a try.

I followed the instructions to the letter and all was going well until it came to piping them onto the baking sheet, as you can see my piping skills are sadly lacking! You can of course, just dollop spoonfuls onto the tray instead.

I halved the recipe and I made 8 reasonably sized cream cakes plus a couple of odd looking tasters :) Do use the link to see the recipe, they give some nice options such as adding rose water and a few drops of red colouring to give them a turkish feel, which I did.

Just goes to show, put some really rubbish looking cakes on a pretty cake stand and suddenly they don’t look half bad!

High tea anyone?

 

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The easiest cookies ever!

1 May 2012 in Baking, Easy to prepare

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Last week I attended a local cooking school called Cookalooks for a fun cooking lesson with my friend Karen. Together with 14 other ladies we enjoyed the hands-on morning where we covered  koeksisters, cherry tomato and basil tartlets, cupcakes with ganache icing and Dutch butter cookies.

Some time ago I shared the recipe for my all time favourite beat & bake cake, where you chuck all the ingredients in together and mix, this recipe is in the same mode, it just doesn’t get easier than this Belinda!!

Delicious, crisp biscuits, don’t be tempted to use anything other than butter. I made over 30 cookies, but it depends on how fat you roll the dough and how thick you cut it.

Dutch butter cookies

200g cake flour

150g softened butter

125g sugar

5ml vanilla essence

pinch of salt

some extra brown or white sugar for sprinkling

Heat your oven to 180C and grease a baking tray.

Using a mixer or a food processor blend all the ingredients together (except the extra sugar) until it forms a dough that looks like this….

Dust your worktop with a little flour and form the dough into a log, wrap in cling and place in your fridge for 30 minutes.

Remove from fridge and slice into rounds like the photo below….

Place on your greased tray, sprinkle with the extra sugar and bake until just going a little brown at the edges, keep an eye on them, it should take about 15 minutes.

Allow to cool and crisp up.

If you live in the Pietermaritzburg area and want to contact Cookalooks, phone Catherine on 033 3452434 or have a look at their web page here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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