Sour Cream Brownies - Rich and delicious

I have always been a lover of "loot", I am never one to turn down a gift for any reason. Sure, I will do the polite "aw you didn't have to" but I will be very glad you did. I am equally excited about giving gifts and often leave gift buying for the last minute to avoid having to wait to see someone's reaction to a gift I bought which I felt was perfect for them. Sometimes I make it the other person's challenge by giving them the gift early and informing them that they cannot open it until the big day arrives. On the same level I tend to wait till after a party to open my gift, a little challenge to myself, something fun to have once all the guests have left and the party is over.

Such it was with the "brownie baking pan" that Nicola, from Wots for Lunch, gave me for my housewarming. She didn't make it easy, telling me she saw it at home and thought it was something I would definitely want. She did say if she got it wrong I could exchange it but I knew it would be so right. In the time that I have known Nicola, every gift she has given me has been thoughtful and just right. 

As some may know I had a #FoodieWarming. My housewarmings are going in stages, my flat is smallish and I wasn't sure what my limit was. As usual I totally over catered for the event (except on the tortilla's side, I didn't make enough) and was left with plenty food at the end of the night. What could be frozen was and what couldn't, was used (salsa makes great omlettes). I wasn't sure what to do with all the left over sour cream but when I saw Nicola's gift I knew that somewhere in the world wide web there must be a recipe for Sour Cream brownies and I was so right.

Sour cream brownies
(recipe adapted from TLC - how stuff works)
What you need:
1/2 cup butter softned
1 cup caramel sugar (you can use light brown sugar too)
1 egg
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup NoMu cocoa ( I mention brand because their cocoa is very potent, other brands use 1/2 cup)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup milk
1 bar dark chocolate (I had a bar of Lindt Dark Chocolate Mousse - it was either that or Madagasse)
What to do:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Butter a 33X22cm pan or brownie pan.
Cream butter and sugar in large bowl until blended. 
Add egg, sour cream and vanilla; beat until light. 
Add cocoa, baking soda and salt; beat until smooth. 
Alternate flour and milk well mixed. 
Stir in chocolate.
Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until center springs back when touched. Cool in pan on wire rack.
Cut into which ever shape you like or if you lucky like me the pan has already done that for you.


Serve with a cold glass of milk. 

Caramel Bread

TheHusbands brother loves to cook. So when we're up for a visit I try and see where his interest lie and how well he executes them. So far I have seen him do 2 things. 1) Wreck a really good piece of meat and 2) Caramel Bread.

His way: Buy bread dough from the grocery store, make little balls, place in a baking tin and cover with Caramel Sugar and Cream. Leave to rise then bake.

This is the way I have been doing it. It's one of those dessert you can whip up real quick, everyone loves it and there is only 1 dirty dish (and sometimes a dirty drip tray if I underestimate how much it bubbles over)

It really is a self saucing dessert. The caramel sugar melts into the cream and soaks into the dough as it bakes. If you put in enough cream (and it doesn't all boil over onto your drip tray) there will be some caramel sauce left over too.

So the other day, while cooking up a cottage pie I sat waiting for the bing of my oven timer and realised "I need dessert!". How could I have people over for supper and not give them something sweet to end with? Caramel bread came to mind. Smells great, tastes delicious, minimum effort. I checked my watch, 17:00, there would be no way that PnP would still have raw dough for sale.

This lead me a to google search for a simple white bread recipe and I stumbled on this recipe. Checked my pantry (cupboard), checked the fridge, inspected my counter and found everything except bread flour. So did I give up? No! See I am a cook not a baker so I have no regard for exact ingredients...pffft. I used cake flour instead. I can tell you that on this one occasion my contempt for recipes paid off well (nothing exploded either, bonus!)

What you need:

1 cup milk

2 tbs butter

1 1/2 cup warm water
2 packets dry yeast
2 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
6/7 cups flour (use bread if you have it, cake if you don't)
1 cup cream (or more if you have a deep enough dish)
1 cup caramel sugar

What to do:
Melt the butter in the milk in a saucepan on a low heat. Once melted put aside to cool. Mix the yeast and 1/2 cup of warm water together and put aside too. In a large bowl mix together the sugar, salt and water together. Once cooled add the milk and butter mixture. Make sure the mixture is not too warm before adding the yeast mixture, you don't want to kill the yeast. Mix the flour in one cup at a time until you get a nice smooth and slightly sticky dough, not too sticky though. Kneed it and then pop it into a well oiled bowl, flip it over so that the dough is coated in oil and then cover and leave to rise for about an hour or until doubled in size. Knock it down and leave it for another 30 minutes. Greece a baking tin of your choice and and make balls of dough. The size is your choice depending on the baking tin you use but the balls are important. Sprinkle the caramel sugar over everthing keeps a little aside to sprinkle ontop. Pour the cream over. Cover and let rise for at least 20 more minutes. Before popping it into the oven at 180°C sprinkle the rest of the sugar on top. Bake until golden brown and serve warm. 
Can also be served the next day with some extra caramel sauce and a cup of coffee

Orange Yoghurt Cake

To be honest, this post was meant to hold a good ol' South African dessert. Only fair after the All American post before it but not all is fair in pregnancy and cravings and so the Local is Lekker post will have to wait.

Don't you worry though, this post is full of sweetness just right for the winter season. The perfect cake to bake if you don't want to spend too long out from under the covers and ready so quick you could probably bake it just before guest arrive for coffee.

Let em take you back to Tuesday afternoon. After checking with the whole family what the plans were for supper I was left with "make something" and my porridge brain shut down and no ideas other than "spaghetti bolognese" would come up. There was no mince and what I really wanted to do was curl up under a blanket and stare blankly at the TV screen. The latter won and I was delighted that "up next" on the Food Network was Ina Garten. Aha! I thought, she will definitely have something that will inspire dinner.

I was wrong, between the Baked Salmon (I don't like salmon, yes yes I know) and the Oriental noodle salad (Don't get me wrong, it looked good...and summery) nothing really caught my eye. Why do I bring up her show then? Well her dessert, lemon yoghurt cake, did. Off I ran to get pen and paper and rewound the segment to copy down ingredients and instructions and then rushed off to the kitchen, forgetting the warmth of the blanket and the vapid calm of watching TV

Into the kitchen I dashed and checked the fridge. Plain yoghurt...hmm just 1 small tub but I did have some leftover inkomazi/maas (Leben or sour milk), that should work. Then turn to the fruit bowl to check for lemons...plenty but the oranges...ooo. With that a cake was born.

A perfectly easy cake and one I have never baked before so perfectly fitting for Tandy Sinclair's  competition to win Le Creuset competition (click the link to see their amazing range)

What you need: (adapted from the Lemon Yoghurt cake by Ina Garten)
For the cake:
1.5 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2/3 cup plain yoghurt
1/3 cup Maas (Leben or sour milk. You can also use a whole cup of yoghurt)
1 cup sugar
3 Jumbo eggs
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp orange zest
0.5 cup vegetable oil
For the glaze:
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup orange juice

What to do:
Preheat the oven to 175°C. Line a 24cm springform pan. Sift all the dry ingredients together. In a separate combine the yoghurt, maas, sugar, eggs, vanilla and zest. Mix in the dry ingredients until just combined and then add the oil. Mix till all is combined but do not over mix. Pour into your pan and bake for 30-35 min checking to see if it baked through. While it cools slightly (too cold and it won't soak up the glaze) heat up the sugar and juice until clear. Pour over your cake.
Serve with a couple of slices of orange and a dusting of icing sugar.

Oh, I ended up making potato and leek soup for supper, wonderful how a little baking can get the creative kitchen juices flowing.

Oreos - Home made is better

As much as we like to deny it, our lives are full of America. The TV shows we watch and the foods we crave, the good ol' US of A is all around us. It frustrate my husband no end that we are "allowing them" to brainwash us with their cool shows and delicious fast food but I am not complaining. Some things are just better with a twang.

One such thing, is the oreo. How we all rejoiced when they originator of the "but you can have the rest of my meeelk" graced our shores and several years on the cookie, and the iconic advert, still remain firm favourites. So, on one quiet and creative afternoon I thought "well how hard can it be?" and dived head first into the millions of results google handed me. Many very american short cuts like "chocolate cookie mix" later I finally found food networks version and made a few tweaks to match what I had (I was not in the mood to go shopping, if I was I would have just BOUGHT oreos and settled down with a glass of meeeelk)

What you need:

For the Dough:

• 1 1/3 cups NoMu cocoa
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 225g unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Filling:

• 115g unsalted butter, softened
• 3-4 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

What to do:

Prepare the dough: Sift together the cocoa powder, flour and salt in a large bowl.Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, incorporating each ingredient before adding the next. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Divide the dough into 2 pieces; place one piece between 2 lightly floured sheets of baking paper and roll into a half centimetre thick rectangle. Repeat with the other piece of dough. Refrigerate both rectangles, covered with the baking sheets, until firm, at least 1 hour or up to several days.

Using a 4cm round cutter, cut the dough into 64 circles on the baking paper. It's easier to move the dough in between then the individual cookies. (You can reroll the scraps once.) Place the cookies about 4cm. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Bake the cookies until they are set and slightly darker around the edges, about 20 minutes. Cool completely on wire racks.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling: Using a mixer, cream the butter and vanilla until creamy. Beat in the icing sugar and lemon.

Flip half of the cookies upside down and top each with 1 level tablespoon of filling. Press the remaining cookies on top to make sandwiches.

Serve with a glass of cold milk and make sure your dogee doesn't get any cho'clate

Baked Doughnut Peaches

I kept seeing tweets about doughnut peaches and my curiosity was piqued. I had never seen or heard of such things and so the minute I was at Woolworths and saw them I popped them in my trolly, not knowing what their destinies were but knowing that somehow there would be an oven, my mouth and my tummy involved. 

Friday night rolled around since I planned a lightish dinner (red thai curry with brown and wild rice) so I decided dessert was in order. Poaching the peaches sounded like a great idea but I decided a little googling for more options couldn't hurt. So off I went and found this recipe. Brilliant! That was what I would do. I knew we had Lemon Verbena in the garden (Interesting Fact: called Melissa in hebrew) and so all I needed was the cookies.

We only had plain butter cookies in the cupboard and no almond essence, so I crumbled them up, put in some vanilla essence and some Cap'ian Morgan and left them to dry as the peaches soaked in the syrup. 

The peaches baked beautifully and when you broke through the crumbed surface you found what can only be described as peachy custard, soft, creamy and just sweet enough to satisfy the sweet tooth without making holes in it

What you need:

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

4 whole lemon verbena leaves or grated zest of 2 lemons

6 doughnut peaches

About ½ cup flour

1 large egg

1 packet Leibniz Butter Biscuits, crushed
½ tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp rum
Vanilla bean ice cream for serving

What to do:

Place the sugar, water, and lemon verbena leaves or lemon zest in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. When the sugar has dissolved, remove the mixture from the hat. Cool the syrup completely.

Skin the peaches. To loosen their skins and make peeling easier, Plunge the peaches into a pot of boiling water for 30 seconds and then into a bowl of ice water. Peel the skin. Carefully run a small paring knife around the stones, then poke the stones out, leaving a hole in the center.

Pour the syrup into a glass or ceramic dish (large pie plate will do) and place the peeled peaches in the cooled verbena syrup to macerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 4 hours, turning them occasionally. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Place the flour in a small bowl. In another small bowl, whisk the egg to break it up. In a shallow dish, combine the biscuits with the vanilla and rum. Arrange the bowls of flour and egg and the dish of crumbs side by side. Remove a peach from the syrup and let it drain slightly, then dip it in the flour to lightly coat. Shake off the excess, then dip it in the egg to coat. Shake off any excess, then roll in the crumbs. Press the crumbs to pack them. Place the crumb-covered peach on the prepared baking sheet. Continue the dipping and crumb-coating process with the remaining peaches. Pack any leftover crumbs into the stone holes, dividing the crumbs between the peaches. The crumb-coated peaches can be refrigerated for up to 4 hours before baking.

When ready to bake, center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 180°C. Bake the peaches for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan from front to back and continue to bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes, until golden on the outside and the peaches are tender when pierced with a tester. Remove from the oven and serve with vanilla ice cream.

Meringues - Angel food

For my birthday TheHusband told me to pick a spot for breakfast, he wasn't sure he would be able to join us for lunch so we wanted to spend some time together. I chose to go to MissK. The food was really good but what really got my attention and stuck in my mind were their giant meringues. Brittle and crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, I loved every sweet bite.

A few moths later my father decided to try a gellato recipe that uses a bazillion egg yolks, well 8 of them and I decided that it was the perfect opportunity for me to make meringues. So I popped on to google to find the perfect meringue recipe, I found one and my apologies to the blogger who's page I found it on but I seem to have lost the link.

The idea is simple:

Sift your egg whites through a fine sieve

Weigh them

Coat the mixing bowl with lemon (cut the lemon in half and rub it on the bowl)

Pop in the egg whites and start whisking

weigh out twice as much castor sugar

when the egg whites reach the foamy stage slowly start adding the sugar and whisk till stiff.

Take a large spoon and spoon big blobs of meringue onto a baking sheet (or pipe them on prettily if you must)

Then pop into the oven on 110°C with the oven door open for about 1 hour, then drop to 90°C till dried out. (these temperatures my vary depending on your oven)

For a little variation mix some strawberry essense into the egg white mixture and make strawberry meringues 

Hummus Im Bassar and Happy Birthday to TheHusband

3 posts in 1 week, incredible! Ok so one of them was to announce this month's sushi club but still, more than usual.

Now my husband is the kind of man who eats because it's food. He appreciates fine food but he isn't likely to mmmmmm and aaaaaaa and smile from ear to ear with a glint in his eye when tasting some something delightful (guess who does?).‡ So knowing his favourite food is a big thing. when he asks for something by name it's even bigger.

Luckily on Sunday he mentioned wanting honey poached pairs, he said it like he didn't think I could do it...hahaha. That coupled with knowing he loved a popular middle eastern dish made his birthday menu easy:
‡ I have no idea if there grammar here is right, please don't kill me
Hummus im Basar 

followed by honey poached pears

Hummus Im Basar:

By now you are probably dying to know what that means (or not, but I will tell you anyway), it translates to "Hummus with Meat" but what it means when you order it at a restaurant in Israel is A plate full of hummus, topped with fragrant minced, or finely chopped, lamb garnished with paprika, olive oil, whole chickpeas and roasted pine nuts. Add to that some warm pita breads, pickles and salad and you have a hearty, healthy and very very filling meal.

The trick to a good Hummus im Basar is the spices. Loads of cummin and paprika, a bit of a cayene pepper kick (in hebrew we call it "hot paprika") salt and pepper. Obviously you need to find the right balance, too much cummin and it will be sour, too little and well it won't really taste right.

This is why I love my mom's Kenwood chef

I minced my own lamb but if you can find it already minced you can go for it. Much like chicken I preffer mincing my own and I can control how fine it's minced. This dish works better with courser mince.

You can learn more about the process of putting food together in a pleasing way by attending California culinary schools.

MAKE YOUR OWN!!!

I admit, there are a lot of really good premade hummus and tahina options, we love to get those done by Salad Valley and Picante but for this dish, make your own. The only shortcut I will allow you to take (because I did) is using tinned chickpeas but trust me if you have (we discovered on sunday night that we had ½ a cup left) dried chickpeas, soak them and boil them yourself, you CAN taste the difference.

To make hummus:

Blend chickpeas with some tahini paste, water to loosen, salt and pepper to taste and garlic to your heart's desire. 

To make tahina:

You don't even need a food processor for this one, so no excuses. Mix together tahini paste with some water, a little bit at a time till the colour changes and it becomes runny, add some lemon juice and garlic to taste and then some salt to finish it off

Don't skimp, every flavour in this dish is important, use a GOOD olive oil, something peppery, both when cooking your meat (high heat, fast cooking, don't boil the lamb) and when serving the dish. The olive oil that comes out of the Arab villages in Israel is something special, cloudy and peppery but fresh at the same time. One day I will learn the secret and then bring it home to make all your lives that much richer.

Tip: to warm your pita breads without drying them up, first heat up your oven till it's nice an hot then turn it off. Pop the pita breads in till warmed through.

Now the pears were something new so I googled. Most of the recipes had white wine and I knew that method already, however my husband doesn't drink, he doesn't like the taste of alcohol so I searched a little deeper and found this recipe 

Really easy recipe, fresh and tasty, although very very sweet. May just drop the amount of sugar we add next time (or taste the pears first and add accordingly)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

When I first discovered this recipe I was completely taken aback. I thought I could never get it right but I decided to try them anyway. While the resulting images were no where near as good as they could be the taste was phenomenal and I have made red velvet cupcakes and red velvet cake several time since. I love red velvet cake so much I had it as my wedding cake (although it was "blue" velvet for that occasion) and even TheHusband has a great fondness, I know this because he only requests 2 things by name, "Hummus im basar" (Hummus with lamb) and these beauties

The first couple of times I made them I used a chocolate buttercream icing. It wasn't bad but these babies were made to go with a cream cheese icing (and also apparently boiled icing which I haven't yet tried to make...yet). They are essentially chocolate cup cakes but with so much more decadence. Fun to make to as you throw the baking powder into the vinegar and watch it all fizzle.  

If ever you need to start sifting your dry ingredients it's with these beauties. The more air the batter has the more velvety it is and trust me you want them as velvety and light as possible. This however also means that the cake is a delicate one and doesn't do well will too many layers (perfect for cupcakes though).

What you need for the cupcakes:

½ cup butter

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp cocoa

2 tbsp red food colouring

1 tsp salt

2 ½ cups flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp vinegar

What to do:

Preheat oven to 180°C and line your cupcake tray. Cream the butter then beat in the sugar gradually.  Add the eggs - one at a time -beating well after each addition.  Make a paste of the cocoa and food colouring and add to the creamed mixture.  Add the salt, flour, vanilla extract and buttermilk, beating well after each addition.   Sprinkle the baking soda over the vinegar and then pour the vinegar over the batter.  Mix well. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the cupcakes bounce back.

What you need for the icing:

• 448g cream cheese, softened
• 115g butter, softened
• 250g sifted confectioners' sugar
• 5ml vanilla extract
• 
  

What to do:

In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy(I gave me a hearty mix so that it got as white as possible). Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

I decoreated mine with some Vanilla Man Vanilla Coco Grinder

Guest post by Homemade Heaven

I am loving my guest post slot. I get to feel a certain sense of pride that my tiny little blog gets to host some of the best bloggers in the industry. My next gust is no exception. Rosemary from Homemade Heaven was someone who I discovered in the food24 stable, I always admired her cooking and baking and she was one of the blogs I missed most when I stopped reading the food24 blogs. Happily I get to follow her again and enjoy her kitchen skills as well as her inspirational trips to Namibia.


Here she is with some more chocolaty goodness:

When I was asked to write this guest blog post, I couldn't help but think about how I got started in blogging.

I was remembering the months before of reading other food blogs and the inspiration I felt reading about other people's cooking and life experiences.

The most difficult part for me was the writing part. As an infamously bad speller (even with spell check), appallingly bad grammar and very little creative style, I knew that I was always going to have an uphill battle.

All this said, I embarked on my first blog post on 29 August 2007. I am very happy to say that while I still battle with all my short comings, I have managed to post over 300 posts in 3 years. I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing everything from baking cakes to hiking the Namibian mountains!

The most rewarding aspect of blogging has certainly been the people I have met and most not even in the flesh. I have grown to love my blogging friends and have really enjoyed sharing the ups and downs of their's and my life. I have learnt so much about writing and photography over the last 3 years, especially after attending the Cape Town Food Bloggers Conference in February.

I hope that my blog will remain a true reflection of who I am and the beliefs I have.

I am sharing my recipe for mint chocolate chip muffins, as it is by far the most popular treat in my home. As a naturally lazy person, I love recipes which are simple to make, with maximum pleasure and these muffins certainly meet all these requirements.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 Eggs
240ml of Buttermilk
120ml Oil
200g Sugar
250g Self Raising Flour

120g Cocoa Powder

1 Teaspoon Baking powder
1 tsp Salt
100g Mint Aero Chocolate

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Muffins bake for about 25 mins.
In one bowl mix all the wet ingredients together.
And in another bowl mix all sifted dry ingredients together.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir roughly.
You must not beat until it is smooth.