500g icing sugar
1 tin (385g) condensed milk
390g desiccated coconut
5ml peppermint essence and 3 drops green food colouring
or
5ml vanilla essence and 3 drops pink food colouring

 Place the icing sugar, the condensed milk (taste it first, just for the fun of it!) and coconut in a bowl and mix well.  At first it may seem a bit dry, but work those arms and mix and mix so that when you take a bit of the mixture between your fingers and squeeze it, it holds.  Divide the mixture and place one half into a tin of about grease paper-lined 20×20x5cm and press it down evenly in a layer of white.  Mix the chosen essence and food colouring with the remaining ingredients, I out in some medical gloves (whack, I know, but I felt I’ll leave the green/pink stained hands for another operation, because food colouring is quite hard to wash of) and used my hands, working it through with my fingers.  Press the coloured mixture onto the white layer, place it in the fridge for 1 hour until it is firm.  Now turn it out of the tin (the grease paper makes this loads easier) and cut it in squares, I got about 25 out of this batch, but it really depends on how big you want to go.  It would make even the sweetest tooth go on a sugar high after just one square.    

Grandmothers are legends – and from them we inherit legend recipes. This lemon tart is much like my ouma Awe (pronounced A-wwwie, with the kind of friction in your throat an Afrikaans ‘w’ would make) – a twist on the traditional, utterly unforgettable, and clever – on top of all that! In memory of my ouma Awe from Brandfort, a town in the Free State.

For one piece of Ouma’s inheritance:

One packet of Tennis – of Marie biscuits

150g butter

1 tin Condensed milk

2 eggs

4 T freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 T castor sugar

How to go about using the inheritance:

Firstly, turn in your oven on 200 degrees Celsius. Put your biscuits in a sealable bag (for example a large ziplock bag), let all the air go out and seal it. Using a roller pin or empty wine bottle, roll over the biscuits and crush them into very fine crumbs. Next melt the butter in the microwave for about 1 minute on high or in a small pan. Shake the biscuit crumbs into a medium-sized bowl and add the melted butter, then stir to combine well. Take out your tart tin, or any dish similar, and pour roughly 3/4 of the mixture into the tin. Now -hands on – press! Spread it out so that it builds up out to the sides, but keep a good base as well. All-in-all try to get some all over, as even as possible. Place it in the fridge to set a bit.

Pour the condensed milk into a bowl. Next take out a smaller spotless bowl of stainless steel, and separate your 2 eggs, the whites in the stainless steel bowl and the yolks in with the condensed milk. How to separate? Crack the egg carefully in the middle against the side of a bowl, while holding it in your hand. Keep the stainless steel bowl under you and using both hands, carefully open the egg and let the white slide down into the bowl. Next slide the yolk, keeping it whole, in your one hand and let the white run through your slightly open fingers. Place the yolks in with the condensed milk. Don’t let the yellow spoil the whites’ complexion – it will make it incapable of becoming stiff! Using an electric whisk (using your hand and a whisk is extremely labour-intensive, tried and tested!) whisk the egg whites until turn white-white and can hold soft peaks – when you lift up the whisk, it stays. Add the castor sugar and whisk another round. Next swop your bowl for the condensed milk and yolks and whisk well until it is well combined. Keep going and add the lemon juice a bit at a time. Take out a metal spoon (to keep the air) and fold in the egg whites with the other mixture in circular, voluptuous movements until no white streak remains. Spoon this out into the tart base. For the final touch, sprinkle the remaining quarter of the biscuit crumbs on the top. Bake it in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. It is ready when the top has coloured to caramel slightly and you can smell it. You will not believe how good this is!

Roulade, roulade, roulade, roulade rolls from your tong and plate. This recipe was inspired by one of my all-time hero’s, Sam Stern, being a teen himself, wrote a teen’s survival cookbook. This one I made for Helette, a small something to say happy 21^st!

Makes one big cake for 10 people or 3 small ones

You need:

Sunflower oil or Cook ‘n Spray, for greasing.

250 grams dark chocolate

160ml castor sugar

5 eggs

4 ½ T espresso or strong coffee, freshly made

Icing sugar, for dusting

One carton (250ml) double cream or mascarpone

250g strawberries or other berries, as you wish

To make someone’s wish come true:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Take a tin about 23 x 33 cm or 3 loaf tins and line with greaseproof paper, and grease it. Fold it so that it fits nicely; let the paper stick out around the sides. Separate your eggs with clean hands, no oil, the whites going into a small stainless steel bowl and the yolks in another. Whisk the whites until they form stiff peaks, about 3 minutes with an electric whisk. Add the castor sugar to the yolks and whisk them until it turns light in colour and resembles what would be eggy mousse. Break the chocolate finely into a heavy-bottomed, non-stick pan and add the espresso. Let this melt over a very low heat, take care not to burn at all, and keep whisking! This will only take you less than one minute. Add the melted chocolate to the yolks and fold in with a big metal spoon. Next fold in the egg whites with the spoon. The odd spot of white is does not matter. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 25 minutes for the big tin, if you insert a knife in the middle and it comes out clean then hey! It is ready! The loaf tins will take approx. 15 minutes. It may be cracked at the top, that is fine, and it will also sink after it cools down. Let it cool down for at least 15 minutes. Whisk the double cream so long, and add some orange zest if you like it. Smooth it over the roulade with a knife, not to thick, not to thin, just right. Lift the short end of the roulade and roll it away from you so that it looks like an odd Swiss roll. Peel off the baking parchment as you roll. Take it easy, it may crack and break but it is not the end of the world. Keep rolling until you come to the end of it, transfer to a plate, cut and toss a few strawberries around it and dust with icing sugar (use a sift). Happy eating!

This is the Catalonians’ version of crème caramel, adapted from the recipe book The Love of Spanish and Mexican Cooking. It dates back to 1981 and has personal notes written by my paternal grandmother, Adele de Waal. My grandparents on both side (and both my parents for that matter) lived in Brandfort, a small dorp (village) in the Free State. I never knew my paternal grandmother, but the stories I hear of her make me want to cook more and more just to be a bit closer to her. I have heard stories of her making basil pesto (in Brandfort!) before pesto become the vogue. When I paged through the book, my eyes could not miss the Crema Catalan. Here is my version… make it yours.

For 4 people you need:

2 ½ cups milk

1 stick cinnamon

Rind of one lemon, finely grated

6 eggs, separated (instructions follow)

3 T cornflour (Maïzena)

½ cup sugar

Half a vanilla pod, cut in half, or ½ t vanilla essence

How to go about it:

Heat 2 cups of the milk in a small saucepan, together with the lemon rind, vanilla pod and cinnamon over a medium heat. When you can see it bubbles on the surface or at the sides, it is boiling, so turn down the heat so that it heats slowly over a low heat, which is to simmer. Take care that it does not start foaming and rising over the pan, the heat is the a bit too hot. This will take about 5 minutes; turn off the heat after that.
Have two bowls (a deepish one is good for the yolks, as not to make a mess when whisking), separate the eggs. Take one egg in your hand; give it a light crack in the middle with a knife or at the side of your egg white bowl, a stainless steel bowl one. Turn the egg lengthways again like you want to open it, and then open it slowly and with the uttermost care so that the white spills out into the stainless steel bowl, then slide the yolk back into the other half of the egg shell so that only the yolk remains. Throw the yolk into the other bowl. Watch out that you do not get any yolk in with the whites (vice versa is not a problemo), if you want to have a go at meringues. Check for any egg shells in between. Next whisk in the remaining milk (½ cup) with the yolks and add the cornflour. Make sure there are no lumps of flour, so whisk like your arm twists of! It’s only for 10 seconds, though.
Strain the milk through a sift into a clean pan. Add 2 T of the sugar and the yolk mixture, stir constantly with your whisk while you through this in. The egg-mix should not be to hot, otherwise it may scramble. Turn the heat on, the lowest possible setting you can go, and whisk the mixture all the time, while it thickens, about 5 minutes. It may seem labour-intensive, but it has been done before and you can do it! It is ready when you are able to coat the back of a wooden spoon with the glossy mixture. Please don’t let it curdle, the heat is too hot! Save it by whisking hard, placing the pan in some colds water to cool off, or whizzing it in the food processor – a bit of a cheat there but sometimes it works.
Pour into shallow heatproof serving dishes (4 small individual ones) or one big all rounder, allow to cool in the fridge for 1 hour. Put the grill on high, put a rack directly under the grill, the nearest you can go.
When the custard had set, sprinkle the remaining sugar over with a teaspoon, evenly over the surface. Place it under the very hot grill for 1-2 minutes to caramelize and melt the sugar until brown. Remove and let it cool down a bit and the sugar harden again.

My mom likes it hot, straight from the pan to the oven to the table, while it is very hot. You can do it either way.

This cake is the 1, 2, 3 of choclate cakes – soft and moist, but I’m missing the intense chocolatey taste here. I guess that is because of the use of cocoa, it still does not allude to that chocolate high. Nevertheless, it still gets the thumbs up-sign! When looking for the ideal but easy birthday cake, last-minute or 35 minute chocolate cake, or if you are new to this nirvana, go for this one! Mmmmm….

For the cake:

400ml cake flour

220ml castor sugar

1 t baking powder

1/2 t bicarbonate of soda

120ml best-quality cocoa you can find

175g unsalted butter, soft

2 large eggs

2 t vanilla extract

150ml sour cream

Take everything out of the fridge, just to let it come to room temperature. Put your oven on 180 degrees Celsius, and grease (with butter or marge or cooking spray) your cake pan – any one you like as long as it is big enough for the mixture. Line it with baking parchment at the bottem. (For a round cake tin, use a square piece, fold it in a triangle in half, then the triangle in half again, and once more. Put the tip in the middle of the pan, and measure it along the edge – the size of the pan. Tear/cut it with a round angle and open the paper, it should be more-or-less round and ready to fit!)

All you have to do is chuck all the ingredients in a food processor and mix! I find it to be a quite thick batter so watch it as it spins for about 30 seconds. You can also do it the other way – here goes – mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, raising agents except the cocao) and then cream in the butter by beating it with a whisk for a bit less than a minute. Whisk in the cocoa, sour cream, vanilla and eggs.

Put this in your cake pan, make shure your oven is hot enough and pop it in for 35 minutes, start checking at 25 though, especially if you are making two smaller layers (you can also swop them around half way into the cooking time if one is under the other one in the oven (to ensure even cooking). Test if the cake is ready by inserting a sharp knife in the middle of the cake – if it comes out clean, not wet with chocolate, it is ready! Take it out…

Leave it alone for 10 minutes, just so that it can cool down before you turn it out, otherwise it will break (tried and tested)! Then turn it out on a wire rack for further cooling (5 minutes). This feels like forever – but now you can ice the cake! Use a can of caramel, mixed around a bit to loosen it up and then spread over nice ‘n thick. Or you can make some
ganache (the chocolate icing of the kings which uses no icing sugar): equal quantities of dark chocolate and cream, in this case use 150g dark chocolate and 150ml cream. Put a deep pan on the heat with a some water in it. Now you need a bowl which does not touch the water, will fit the pan like a lid, so that no steam escapes. Place the chocolate (broken up into small pieces) and the cream in that bowl. Turn the heat down. When the chocolate has melted, about 3-5 minutes, take it off the heat and whisk furiously in the bowl, or you can transfer it not to spill this liquid black gold. It should be glossy and smooth. All you have to do is pour the ganache on the cake in the middle, use every bit of it and let it run over the sides. Transfer to a clean serving plate.

*This cake a made for dessert once, and served it with ice cream. That was cool, but my icing just did not work this time, I added to much cream. It happens!

Manie, ek is verbaas – van eiendomsontwikkelaar (my ma en hy werk so nou en dan saam aan ‘n projek) tot DJ, pa en nou die nuwe eienaar van die drankwinkel met die meeste ganache, jammer panache … Roeland Liquors in Roeland straat – jou kaaskoek is bobaas.  Hier is dit – net soos jy vir my vertel het op 12 Desember 2006. 
“Sit die oond aan op 180 grade Celsius. Maak die kors soos dit moet wees : meng ‘n ¾ pakkie Marie- of Tennisbeskuitjies, fyngemaak*, met 100g gesmelte botter en druk dit plat in ‘n tertbord (wat goed gesmeer is met botter), sit dit solank in die yskas.  Volgende neem jy 2 bakkies roomkaas, wat jy gekoop het, en meng dit met ½  koppie room, ¼ koppie suiker, dan een eetlepel bruismeel en 1 teelepel vanielje geursel.  Vir die volgende het jy twee keuses: vir ‘n ligter kaaskoek – skei 2 eiers, gooi die wit in ‘n klein mengbak en die geel by die roomkaas-mengsel.  Klop die witte totdat dit hul punte hou maar nog sag is, vou dan dit met ‘n metaallepel in die roomkaas-mengsel in. Die tweede opsie is om die eiers te breek en net so in te gooi by die roomkaas, as jy dit ‘n bietjie meer dense wil he. Gooi die vulsel in die tertdop en bak vir … so 30 minute. Voilà!”

*Jy kan dit met die hand doen, sit dit in ‘n groot vriessakkie en maak dit toe, kap en slaan en haal jou frustrasie uit (of gebruik ‘n deegroller). Jy kan anders ‘n voedselverwerker gebruik, dit werk ook baie goed.
J Ek het die tweede opsie ingekluis na ‘n aanbeveling van Uno (hy hou van ‘n dense kaaskoek), so bietjie kooketic license – Jade.
Manie’s Cheesecake
I included the Afrikaans version so that you can understand where it comes from… Hang on!  English here I come!

Manie, I am amazed – from a property developer (he and my mother sometimes work in a partnership on a project) to DJ, father and now the new owner of the liquor with the most ganache, sorry panache … Roeland Liquors in Roeland street,  your cheesecake is the master. And here it is – just like you told me on 12 December 2006.

“Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Make the crust like it should be: mix a ¾ packet of Marie- of Tennis biscuits, made into fine crumbs*, with 100g melted butter and press it flat in a well greased (with butter, smear all around) tart pan, then put it in the fridge for the meanwhile.  Next mix 2 tubs of cream cheese, the bought ones, and mix it with ½ cup single cream, ¼ cup sugar, then one tablespoon of self-raising flour and one teaspoon vanilla essence. Nou you have two choices : you can seperate two eggs, place the egg white in one small bowl and the yolk with the cream cheese-mixture.  Whisk the egg whites by hand or electric mixer untill they can hold a point, but are soft.  Fold the whites using a metal spoon into the cream cheese-mixture.  The second option is to break two eggs and through it right in.  This will create a denser texture, whereas the first option is for a airy and light cheesecake.  Pour the fulling into the case, then put it in the oven for say … 30 minutes.  Voilà!”
*You can do this by hand by putting the biscuits ito a freezer bag, letting out the air and closing it, then mashing and smashing and taking out everything on it, or you could use a rolling pin.  Another option is to put it in a food mixer – which works well too. 

J I included the second option after a suggestion by Uno (who loves dense cheesecake), just a bit of cooketic license – Jade.

Everybody drinks it – a mixture of 1T Chinese green tea in a pot with boiling water, a bunch full of washed mint and 4 T sugar. Traditionally served in beautiful glasses and poured from a height to airate the water. Warning! You can leave out the sugar if you do not want your teeth to look like a moroccan’s, but do try it every now and again for a treat, it is heaven after walking/working the whole day, this is the perfect pick-me-up for locals and visitors alike…

It just came to me – no – actually I have been thinking about it a few days now already. The Italians and French are way more worshipped when it comes to food, but where are the Spanish? This one is for all the ones out there with a spanish flair…

One morning while my family and I were on experiencing Madrid, I asked them if I could treat them to a traditional Spanish breakfast (recommended by the guide book). After walking on empty stomachs for quite a while having a hearty breakfast of beans, eggs and chorico’s in mind, we came to sit in the restaurant only to discover that I had led them to a traditional breakfast of ever-so decadent chocolate and churros, … my fantastic family was in want of something different but nevertheless they laughed all the way.

Churros

Makes one plateful

You need:

Vegetable oil for deep frying

1 cup water

½ cup butter

¼ tsp salt

1 cup cake flour

3 eggs

¼ cup sugar

If you are using a deep frying machine, turn it on a medium heat, otherwise, no problem, pour a few glugs of oil into a deep saucepan until it is half full and turn the heat on over a medium heat.

To make the churro dough:

Heat the water, butter and salt so that it boils – the butter must melt completely – then turn the heat down so that it is of a low heat. Now add the flour and stir as if it is a question between life and death! I mean stir vigorously until the mixture starts to pull away from the sides to form a ball, about 1 minute. Take it off the heat. Beat the eggs in all at one, you can use a whisk to make it easier or keep using your wooden spoon, until it is smooth.

Let it all cool down. Take a breather. When it is ready, spoon the mixture into a large star tipped cake decorators tube. If you do not have one, see page ….for other options (“ ‘n boer maak ‘n plan” – literally translated as “a farmer makes a plan”). Hold the tube full of churro mixture at the bottem with your right hand and at the top with your left, so that when you squeeze, everything does not bulge out of the top. Now squeeze 3 long snail of +/- 15 cm each directly into the heated oil. The oil will make a lively sizzling sound. Check the churros and make sure they do not stick, if they do, use two forks to separate them. When they have turned golden brown, about 3-4 minutes, remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Then squeeze the next batch into the oil and while they fry away, roll the drained churros in sugar and pile on a plate. Repeat this with the mixture until the mixture is finished. When you have a sky-high pile, pour the remaining sugar over and serve to dunk in the special chocolate concoction below…

Chocolate Concoction for Churros

This can be made without adding the milk, stored in an airtight container of sorts and then used when needed. It is way better than powder hot chocolate, you will agree.

200g dark chocolate

1tsp corn flour (Maizena)

4 tsp sugar

2 cups milk

Break the chocolate up roughly and throw in a blitzer or pulser together with everything else except the milk. Give it a way whizzes so that the chocolate is broken up quite finely and everything is mixed. Place in a container or use straight away. Put the milk in a saucepan with the chocolate and heat over a low heat. Keep whisking it so that the chocolate dissolves into the milk. Continue to whisk for 5 minutes, so that the mixture starts to thicken (because if the corn flour. Remove from the heat and whisk until smooth. Pour into 4 individual cups if you do not know each other too well, or one bowl if you are friends/family. Do not pour the mixture over the churros, but rather use it to dunk your churros in the chocolate after every bite. Mmmmmm… sweetness.