Bread and butter pudding

Of my fondest memories are all related to this lovely dessert.  First was way back when our family went to the Cape for this first time and went to The Volkskombuis in Stellenbosch.  There you get to order dessert from the dessert trolley and I remember having bread and butter pudding drizzled with fresh cream, it was the traditional version with raisins.  Next, was a lovely dinner with my dad at the Wild Fig restaurant in Observatory.  The bread and butter pudding there was completely different - decadently sweet with a sugary crust served with apple sauce.  The third memory is a lunch I had with one of my former employers, at the Oude Libertas.  This time it was made with croissants and marmelade - one of the best dessert I've ever had.  Recently my mom tried out the recipe I'm about to share.  I think she saw this caramel bread and butter pudding on the cooking channel and being an excellent cook, she perfected it. 

It works best if you use home made white bread, brioche or challah.  Do not use that sliced, white, long life stuff - it will be a disaster!

You will need only 6 ingredients: butter, sugar, cream, milk, bread and eggs! The quantities below will be enough for a dish of approximately 20cm x 30cm and will serve 6 - 8 people.

For the caramel:

1 1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup cream

75g butter

Caramelize the sugar as described and as soon as the the right colour is reached remove from the heat, add the cream and butter, and stir until the butter is melted.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

Remove the crusts of 14 slices of bread (no need if it is a soft crust) and spread lightly with butter. Place half the bread in a single layer in an oven proof dish, pour over half the caramel sauce and repeat. Alternatively, slice the bread into neat triangles and neatly arrange them at an angle in the dish.  Drizzle over the caramel sauce, making sure the bread is well covered.

Now, lightly whisk together:

250 ml cream

750 ml milk and

5 eggs

Pour over the bread and let it stand for at least half an hour for the bread to soak up the milk.  Then, sprinkle the top generously with sugar, you will need approximately 3 - 4 tablespoons.  Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve with ice cream.

Dark and decadent

I love chocolate - the darker, the better.  I had to bake chocolate cupcakes for a friend last week, and immediately turned to one of Elsa van der Nest's recipes.  These cupcakes are in my opnion the best there is.  They are very dark and moist and always turn out perfectly.  

Makes 20.

125 g butter, at room temperature

1 1/3 cup castor sugar

1/3 cup sunflower oil 

3 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 t baking powder

1 t bicarbonate of soda

1/2 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt

1/2 cup hot coffee

2 t vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.  Cream the butter and castor sugar.  Add oil and continue whisking until the mixture is light and almost white.  Add the egg yolks one at a time.  Sieve the dry ingredients and combine the yogurt, coffee and vanilla.  Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, alternating with the  liquid.  Whip the egg whites until stiff, but not dry and fold in.  Fill muffin trays (lined with paper cookie cups) and bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Ice with your favourite chocolate icing, caramel or ganache and whipped cream.

Please pass the salad

I've been eating salad for lunch for the past two years.  The only thing that keeps me going is the challenge to try out new combinations and not to have the same salad too often.  A friend of mine asked me for my salad recipes the other day, but to be honest, I don't think you need a recipe for a salad, just keep it simple, stick to six ingredients!  Remember that you also eat with your eyes - so make it look attractive - play with colours and don't chop up everything into little bits, vary the textures.

Here are some of my ideas - each "recipe" will be enough for 2 - 3 people.

Beetroot and orange salad
Boil or steam 4 beetroot the previous night, quarter and drizzle with balsamic vinegar and season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar.
Peel 2 oranges, including the pith, and cut into neat segments, reserving any juice.
Slice one small red onion into fine rings.
Thinly slice 4 radishes.
Roughly chop 2 celery stalks.
Radiccio leaves
Lightly mix all the ingredients including the juice from the orange and balsamic vinegar.

Apple and smoked chicken salad
1 smoked chicken breast, shredded
1 Granny Smith apple, sliced
1/2 yellow pepper, sliced into long strips
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
1/2 a red onion, sliced into rings
a handful of chopped pecan nuts
Mix all the ingredient together and eat with a heaped tablespoon chunky cottage cheese


Tuna salad with pineapple and chilli
1/3 of a cucumber, halved and sliced
4 slices of pineapple, cut into triangles
2 mild red chillies sliced into rings (remove pips if you don't like too much heat)
1/2 green pepper sliced into long strips
1 tin tuna, drained and blended with 1 tablespoon mayonnaise and 1 tablespoon plain yogurt.
butter lettuce
Mix all the vegetables and then dollop with tuna mayonnaise and generously grind over some black pepper.

Avo and sun dried tomato salad
1 avocado, thickly sliced
2 handfuls rocket leaves
4 sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained and roughly chopped
a few cubes of danish feta
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
Neatly arrange the avo and rocket onto a large plate. Scatter with feta, tomatoes and sunflower seeds.
...Stole this one with my eyes from a dear friend...

Crunchy salad
1 carrot, julienned or grated
4 radishes, sliced into rounds
2 celery sticks, thinly sliced
2 handfuls of thinly sliced cabbage
2 tablespoons raisins
Toss together with a drizzle of my best salad dressing and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

...can't wait for tomorrow's lunch!

Bluenose

If you are looking for the best shop to buy fish in Cape Town, head down to Fish 4 Africa in Woodstock or Monte Vista.  We recently discovered this gem and at the same time I also discovered a fish I never knew existed, called Bluenose.  The flesh is firm textured, moist and succulent.  It is listed as green on SASSI's list and readily available.

Since my discovery we've had it three times already, I'm really hooked!  So next time you have a braai, try blue nose with this paprika basting sauce, and let me know what you think.

One of the ingredients you will always find in my cupboard, is smoked paprika.  Not readily available in South Africa, so when you find it, buy a few tins. 

You can try this recipe with any firm fleshed fish, e.g Bluenose, Cape Salmon, Kabeljou, Yellow tail or Tuna.  A fish of 2kg will serve 6 people. 

For a braai, it is best to keep the fish whole, skin on and butterflied.  Use warm to hot coals and start grilling the skin side first.  Baste the flesh liberally with basting sauce. Turn once the fish is almost cooked through.  Grill for 10 more minutes, baste again and grill for another 5 minutes.  If making it in the oven, preheat to 200 degrees.  Baste the fish and grill for 30 minutes.  When cooked the flesh will be opaque. 

For the basting sauce - mix together:

50ml olive oil

50g butter, melted

juice and zest of one lemon

30ml grated red onion

3 fresh bay leaves, finely chopped (if you have a bay tree)

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika

salt and freshly ground pepper

Serve with lemon wedges, savoury rice and green salad.

Keep any left over fish for the fish cakes which I will share with you soon.

Yummy caramel sauce

I've enjoyed this sauce on so many occasions as a child and always thought that the recipe was a close guarded secret.  Only recently did I discover that its inventor shared it with my mom.  A few weeks ago, good friends came over for supper and I served this sauce with apple crumble and ouma's ice cream, they just couldn't get enough.  You might want to double up on the recipe, because you can also eat it by the spoonful from the fridge after midnight, while everybody else is sleeping!

1/2 cup sugar

100g butter (only use real butter, margarine won't do!)

1/2 cup milk, warmed

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cornflour, blended into a bit of milk

Place the sugar and butter into a saucepan and heat over medium heat, until the butter is melted. Turn up the heat and cook, while stirring, until a rich brown caramel is formed.  Add the milk, but be careful, the mixture will boil profusely. Add the vanilla and cornflour and stir until cooked through.  Serves 4.

Caramel

If you want to make some of my ultimate favourite desserts, including creme caramel, cream cheese flan, caramel bread and butter pudding and tarte tatin, you have to master the art of making the perfect caramel. 

You will need 1 cup of sugar and a heavy based saucepan and also a pastry brush.

Put the sugar in the sauce pan and add water to just cover.  A lot of recipes do not add water, but although it prolongs the process, it does make it easier.  Heat over low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved.  It is very important not to let the sugar syrup boil before it is completely dissolved.

Now you can turn up the heat to bring the syrup to a boil.  Sugar crystals might start forming around the edges.  Dip the pastry brush into water and lightly brush the sides to dissolve the crystals.  Do not stir.

Let the syrup boil until it turns a light caramel colour.  It might feel like a long time before it starts to change colour, but do not take your eye of it, or you might end up with a burned mess.  

Once the right colour is reached immediately remove from the heat and dip the saucepan into a basin filled with cold water to stop the cooking process or if you have a marble counter top, just place it onto that, it will cool it down sufficiently to stop the cooking process.

 

If you get a burned sugar smell or see smoke, it is too late, start over! 

If you want to turn this caramel into a lovely caramel sauce - just stir in 1 cup of cream.  Thicken with a little bit of cornflour if you want and flavour with vanilla extract.

Pumpkin fritters

I do not really like the name pumpkin fritters, this is actually "pampoenkoekies" in Afrikaans.  My son normally makes a whole meal of it.  Some people might consider this a dessert, but to South Africans this is a traditional way of serving pumpkin as a side dish.

You could go over the top and make the sauce as described below, but I prefer them dusted heavily with cinnamon sugar.

2 cups cooked pumpkin or butternut, mashed (see hint below)
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly whisked
oil, for deep frying
cinnamon sugar to taste

Blend all the ingredients (except the oil) together until smooth.  Heat the oil, which should be around 8cm deep, until hot.  Drop tablespoons of batter into the hot oil and fry until browned on both sides.  I fry them until the one side is nicely browned, then flip them over and fry the other side.  Drain on absorbent paper.  Pile onto a plate and dust with cinnamon sugar, or even better NoMU Sweet Rub.

For special occasions a make the following sauce to pour over instead of dusting with cinnamon sugar:
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup sugar
200ml milk
1 tablespoon cornflour blended into 1/3 a cup of water
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat the sugar, milk and butter until the sugar is dissolved.  Stir in the cornflour mixture and boil for one minute until thickened.  Add the cinnamon.

(My mom always uses butternut - halved, baked in a hot oven until tender. This way the butternut is less watery and the flavour more intense. I normally steam the pumpkin or butternut, rather than boiling it.)

Ouma's "melkkos"

When my mom visits during winter, she loves to treat us with "melkkos".  This is surely not the healthiest supper, but after a week of  healthy eating and especially on a rainy, cold day, when we all need a bit of comfort food, "melkkos" definitely does the trick.

You will need:

2 litres milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons milk

cinnamon sugar to serve

Heat the milk and sugar.  Rub the butter and milk into the dry ingredients or alternatively mix with handheld blender until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Stir into the milk.  Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Serve, sprinkled generously with cinnamon sugar.

Enough for four.

Ouma's Ice Cream

This one is a firm family favourite.  If you happen to own an ice cream maker - this recipe is ideal for a last minute dessert when you have unexpected guests.  Only four ingredients which you might have at hand or can easily come by at the corner cafe. If you follow the instructions below, you cannot go wrong and everybody will love it.

All you need is:

1 tin condensed milk

250 ml cream

250 ml milk

5 ml vanilla extract

Blend all the ingredients together.  Churn in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions or else go about as follows:

Pour mixture into a shallow glass dish.  Place in freezer and leave until ice crystal starts forming on the sides.  Stir with a whisk or fork to break up the crystals and return to freezer.  Repeat 3 of 4 times and then leave until completely frozen.  To speed up the process you can place the condensed milk in the fridge overnight so that all the ingredients are really cold from the start. 

This quantity will only serve 2 - 3 people if you like ice cream as much as we do!  Rather double up.

My gran did not have the luxury of an ice cream maker and also did not do the whisking part, so the ice cream was always frozen rock hard - but we loved it!  Just a bit of a struggle to dish up. If you are going to eat it at midnight on your own under the duvet - by all means!

Bobotie

Much to the dismay of my husband, I serve minced meat once a week.  Most of us always have some in the freezer and it is very economical after all.  But I do agree that some people really struggle to make the best of it. 

One of my all time favourites is bobotie. 

A bit more than six ingredients, but once you get the feel for it, you won't need the recipe anymore.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Roughly chop 2 onions, heat 1 T oil and saute the onions 3 to 4 minutes. Add 1 T curry powder and 1 t turmeric and fry for a minute.  Now add 1 kg mince and stir fry until browned.  In the mean time soak 2 slices of bread in 1 cup of milk and also grate 2 apples.  (No need to peel them, just quarter, remove the core and start grating from the fleshy side - the peel will stay behind.)

Now add the following to the meat:

1 T sugar
25ml vinegar
3 T apricot jam
the grated apple
Squeeze the milk from the bread and crumble into the meat. 
Season with salt and pepper.

Stir until well blended.  Remove from the heat and spoon into a baking dish.

Whisk 2 eggs into the left over milk, adding a pinch of salt.  Pour over the meat and tuck in a few bay leaves.  Bake for 40 minutes.

This will give you enough time to boil some Basmati rice and fine green beans and to make a quick onion and tomato salad. You'll sit down for dinner within an hour!

And, remember the Mrs Ball's!