Tiramisu is one of my absolute favourite desserts. I love the creamy mascarpone and I love the mellow coffee flavour but what I love most is that it was one of my moms favourite desserts, and one she made incredibly well! My dad always jokes that my mom put so much alcohol in her tiramisu, after 3 bites you were drunk as a skunk! I remember one year at Christmas she made a huge dish of tiramisu but I never even tasted it…none of the kids were allowed in fact. She confessed that instead of adding a few tablespoons of Tia Maria, she actually added half the bottle! I also…
Archive for the ‘Baked Goods’ Category
The first time I saw these doughnut muffins in one of my favourite food magazines, BBC Good Food, my heart literally skipped a beat. I was absolutely in love and I knew I would just have to make them for my family (but mostly for me)! Their original recipe calls for Raspberry preserves which I didn’t have so I used my current ‘preserve obsession’ which is Bonne Maman’s Blueberry preserves. I love how deep and deliciously dark this jam is while the flavour is pleasantly sweet and very blueberry, just what you want right? These muffins were incredibly delicious and I didn’t have to offer them twice. Within a few…
When it comes to baking, cupcakes must be one to the easiest things to throw together and with these easy recipes, you have no excuse not to spoil your family this Easter. The chocolate cupcakes are super moist and to decorate them I simply piped the icing in a ‘nest’ around the top of the cupcake and then filled the hollow with colourful speckled eggs I bought. They look adorable and kids and adults alike will fall in love with them. The coconut cupcakes are delicate and light with a lovely coconut flavour. I like topping it with shredded coconut (which you can toast in the oven for a…
When the wonderful Michael Olivier from Crush! Online magazine asked me to do a feature for their March issue I agreed without hesitation. I love Crush! and am so honoured to be one of their contributors. I decided to do a Easter baking feature as I just love having lots of yummy things to eat when guests visit over Easter weekend (6-9 April, 2012). This bread is just delicious and really easy to make. I use my Kenwood K-Mix to knead the dough which makes it even easier. It’s a delicious bread to serve as part of a breakfast buffet with fresh fruits, yoghurt and home-made granola as it’s…
If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you’ll know that I shared some very (read: VERY VERY VERY) exciting news late last year. Before I get to that news here, on my blog, however, I need to start at the beginning. I started my blog two and a half years ago when my twins were about 10/11 months. I was a stay-at-home-mom who had been a make-up and hair artist before I fell pregnant and had to stop working/studying due to being pregnant with twins (standing 12 hours a day is not exactly healthy when you are carrying twins). My blog was a way to not only share my…
Is there anything more delicious than a fresh, ripe Nectarine? I just can’t get enough of them at the moment and try to eat them everyday (if my kids don’t finish them all before I get a chance to grab one). I’ve never really cooked with nectarines and wanted to do something quite special with them so I decided to make a tart with them. After much deliberation and research (gosh, I’m making it sound quite serious, aren’t I?), I decided to make a Frangipane tart. When I was younger I had this idea that frangipane tarts are hard work and that only experienced pastry chefs could pull…
I have wanted to make Baklava for years now but I always thought it was one of those desserts that was just too difficult to make yourself (or one of those desserts that I’m just too lazy to make myself). But when I received some of Mediterranean Delicacies’ (MD) phyllo pastry, I thought it necessary to give this delicious Greek dessert a try. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. The MD phyllo pastry is light and delicate and working with it was incredibly easy. I loved how it wouldn’t dry out immediately (like some other phyllos) if I didn’t cover it with a damp cloth and that…
Last week I attended a blogger cook-off hosted by Canderel to promote their new product, Canderel Yellow. I have to be honest, I’ve never been a fan of artificial sweeteners as they always have a nasty aftertaste that I just can’t get over, so I very rarely use them. But I was pleasantly surprised to see the the new Canderel Yellow granules not only look just like caster sugar, but also taste just like sugar, just a little sweeter. It’s made with Sucralose and is bake stable, which is very exciting for me as I just love to bake. I decided that the recipe I would use the new Canderel…
I know you might say I’m evil for posting this first thing on a Monday morning. But sometimes, all you need is some chocolate to get you through the day. That’s why I thought I would share my favourite chocolate recipes with you. Funnily enough, I’m not one of those people who need to have chocolate all the time, but I do get intense cravings every now and then and when those cravings hit, I am so desperate for chocolate that I would contemplate selling my kidneys some. It’s no wonder then that there are a plethora of fabulous chocolate quotes out there and these are some of my…
When I was a little girl, I used to go with my gran to the University of Pretoria where both her and my mother worked (my mother was a lecturer in Criminology) and we would drink tea in the big conference rooms. Whenever I smell Rooibos tea I think of my gran. She used to add a cube of sugar and a good glug of milk to my dainty tea cup and she always had something baked for the occasion. I so long for those days of pretending to be all grown-up. My gran never actually baked this cake but I found this recipe in one of my mother’s old…
