Of Butterflies ....

I found this butterfly in the kitchen and found it to be quite fascinating. I fell madly and deeply in love with it. we spent the day doing our beautiful dance - we did the tango (she was playing hard to capture with the camera), and the quickstep (flying away from the camera) and then we danced slow (success).

By the end of the day I found my new found love drowning in water in the sink. I couldn't even save her since the water was very warm. By the time I got to her she was dead. Very heart broken.

I'll forever cherish the way we danced!

Naartjie Almond Cake and Cupcakes

My plan this weekend was to make three cakes but on account of me not finding all the ingredients for the cakes I could only make one.

I've been meaning to make naartjie almond cake for awhile, but the fear of it not turning out well or it not being received well always left me hesitant.

I awoke at three am to boil the naartjies, in question, for two hours and left them to cool before puree-ing them. Note this is a flourless cake, which is what made me apprehensive. I wasn't sure if it would come out of the tin well, and it being a fruit cake meant it would burn easily. So I opted for cupcakes, which I could watch and time to ensure no burning, and a cake (just to see how it came out) for this recipe.


Its so simple and only uses about five ingredients - sugar, naartjies, powdered almonds, eggs and baking powder. The trick with this recipe is trying to balance the bitterness of the naartjies and the sweetness of the sugar. I found it helped to add a bit of vanilla to pureed fruit.

This time I also tried my hand at decorating. I used a marshmallow fondant icing, which I had made on Thursday afternoon, to fashion my decorations. It was quite a mission to try and colour the icing. It occurs to me now that I should have added the colour to the melted marshmallows before turning them into fondant. Anyway, I fashioned flowers - or what I think flowers look like.

For the actual icing bit I used a hazelnut chocolate German equivalent of Nutella. Delicious.

I'm still not sure how I want to ice the cake version of the recipe - perhaps I'll serve it as is or maybe add sticky orange preserve.

Let me know what you think and please feel free to make suggestions for recipes I should try out next.

Breakfast Again.....

I awoke this morning to the heat of the sun's rays on my face which made me wonder when exactly I had left the curtains not drawn. Then our puppy, seeing me awake from my window, decided it was the best time for it to bark and nag for a bit of breakfast. This puppy can be quite annoying if it wasn't too funny.

Having finished giving the puppy and its 9 year old father their breakfast, I too was quite famished. I must say I prepared a much larger breakfast than I could finish - but finish it I did and had to carry out my work on a very full stomach.

Anyway for breakfast it was a chive omelette, with a salad consisting of olive oil stir fried

bean sprouts, basil and two types of lettuce all laced with a honey mustard dressing. I decided to go overboard and add last nights meat balls - made the same way as the Namibian meatballs, but with three types of mince (lean beef, normal beef, and pork).








I then topped it off with a banana, yoghurt, coconut cookies and rooibos tea.