Mother's Day Lunch

This Mother's Day, for lunch we decided to make an unusual sort of dish - in that you couldn't really name it as, say, African, Italian, Japanese, etc.

I made and cheese, chives and mint potato bake, boiled sweet corn (with olive oil butter), cucumber and sushi ginger, and salmon sushi served with light soy sauce. I'll post how I made the sushi later.

For dessert, My sister made chocolate mini cupcakes with Nutella topping and pink, white and silver decorations. As usual, I can't post cake recipe's as they are family secrets :)

From this view the mini cupcakes can be seen well.

Mint Tea

When I first started this blog I really wanted it to be about all sorts of tea that I could make. Then I thought I'd incorporate different types of liquor and how they I tasted in order to pick the right one to accompany a meal. Fast forward a couple of years and the blog is now more about cakes and desserts. I must say, even though the majority of the post are about desserts, this blog is really about my in Namibia but told through the different food (be it liquid or solid) that I eat.

So, after years (or maybe months) of neglect I have made a "tea", if you can call it that. I have been feeling a bit under the weather and have overused the "ginger and honey" and "lemon and honey" pairings for tea and decided to make mint tea. All you do is take a bunch of fresh mint leaves and put them in a cup then add freshly boiled water and let it infuse for a few minutes before drinking. It is as simple as that and soothes the throat and helps decongest the nasal passages. If you prefer you could sweeten the tea.

Chocolate Caramel Cake

We, NK Just Desserts, have sold our first cake! 

Chocolate Caramel Cake

I am so very excited.

We, my cousin and I, have toyed around with the idea of desserts sale for so long, and were convinced we have doomed ourselves. 

I got a phone call one morning last week for a request to make a square chocolate caramel cake. This  I did as fast as I could to reach the "tomorrow" deadline accompanying the request. 

Chocolate Cake

All in all I think the it turned out all right considering the short notice. Decoration and lettering is something I still need to practice though.

Let me know what you thought and maybe hints on ways of improvement. Till next bake. Addi

Yorkshire Pudding with Ice Cream and Caramel Fudge Sauce

Yorkshire Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream and Caramel Fudge Sauce

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For the last couple of weeks I have been having a strong craving for Yorkshire Pudding but not in the 

traditional way of serving it with roast beef and gravy and some greens. I wanted something sweet, hot and cold (though this is an impossibility), and with the crunch and softness of Yorkshire pudding.

This morning at around 7 am I just had to get up and make it. So the recipe I know is to make tthe pudding in reverse - by  whisking the eggs, salt, pepper and milk together and leave them for about 15 minutes. But before you do your whisking first switch your oven on to as high as it can go, ours is at 230 degrees Celsius. then you do your whisking. Whilst leaving your mixture, rub either beef droppings ("omagadhi gee ngobe" to the Owambo people) or vegetable fat in a baking pan and put on a rack in the oven.

For the measurement I used 6 eggs, 2 cups of milk, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 3 pinches of pepper (black or white).

After 15 minutes, add the flour (2 1/4 cups) to the mixture and whisk, then pour into the heated pan in the oven and bake (don't open the oven door even if it smokes) for 20 minutes and it is golden and risen.

Freshly baked Yorkshire Pudding

I serve immediately while it is hot with e few scoops of vanilla ice cream (I like country fresh by nestle) and a drizzle of caramel fudge sauce (I like the one by So!Go).

Caramel Fudge Sauce

Vanilla Ice Cream

Sweet dessert (breakfast in my case)

Try it and let me know what you think :)

Smoked Snoek Chowder

Snoek is a long thin commercial food fish found in the seas of the Souther hemisphere. This fish can grow to as large as 200 centimetres and have a mass of up to 6 kilograms. It is an oily fish, very bony and has very fine scales. You can buy it fresh, frozen, smoked or canned. It is quite common and is considered a delicacy in Namibia and South Africa (even more so than in Namibia). Snoek has a very distinct taste and flavour - and we love it.

So when my father brought home smoked snoek last Wednesday, my brain was a buzz with all the recipes I can try out and my fingers began to tingle with anticipation. I like soupy things, so I decided to make smoked snoek chowder.

Smoked Snoek Chowder

For the chowder I used potatoes, leeks (the white part only), celery, portobello mushrooms, salt, fresh parsley, fresh thyme, black pepper, white wine, water, vegetable stock powder, all purpose flour and the smoked snoek (de-boned and roughly shredded).

First, you make the base for the chowder, which is the same way you would make a typical potato and leek soup, then when that is cooked you add a third of your snoek and cook it for about five minutes on low heat. Once that is simmered down you add the rest of the snoek and take it of the heat and leave for 10 minutes. After that you can serve with either some form of bread or just eat it as it is.

I must say this was a hit, and with winter coming on there is bound to be a lot more of this chowder and other soups on the cards.

Of Birthdays and Graduations

The last weekend of April I was quite busy with baking. It began on the Wednesday when my baby brother asked me to bake the carrot cake, that I have, by now, perfected, for his birthday.

Baby Brother's Carrot cake - his friends went wild for this :)

The current recipe for the cake includes more flour as some of my reviewers felt it was too moist. I must say, right now people are happy with the current recipe.

Of course, one cake does not constitute "busy with baking". On the Thursday, my baby brother's birthday, I had to do a bit more baking for my step mother's, "mom 2" as I say when I need to differentiate between my two mothers, graduation tea on the Friday. Anyway, this blog is not about that. Uhm, to get back on track, I made five cakes, the carrot again, two chocolate cakes, a coconut cake, and a carrot coconut cake.
I don't think I shall talk much about the carrot cake as that is a very well sung song.

Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake with Nutella topping

I have also, by now, gotten better at making chocolate cakes. This recipe is very easy and does not use hot water like I did before. The ingredients are not much - its just flour, baking soda and powder, cocoa powder, oil, sugar, a few scoops of fig jam (not marmalade or preserve) and eggs. So, jo (by the way this is not a typo), mix together, whisk, pour and bake. I baked four of these to make two iced cakes.

The icing on the cake couldn't be more simple, just sandwich the cakes together with fig jam and cover the top of the cake with Nutella. Simple!

Coconut Cake

Island Coconut Cake with Mango Coconut Syrup Icing

I was in such a island mood, which is something quite alien to me - I'm a winter and snow type of girl, and decided to bake a coconut cake. I've never attempted one before as I was always fearful of it being too dry. Mind you, this cake uses butter, quite a large amount of milk and tons of coconut. I also added some spices just so it did not come out bland.








I was not quite sure what to do to make this cake attractive - first of all it is quite a large cake so I was overwhelmed. In the end I used cream cheese icing to sandwich the base and the top together and then used mangoes (in true island mode) for the top before drizzling over a mango and coconut syrup. For the syrup I used mango juice, desiccated coconut, icing sugar and a bit of lime and simmered this in a pan until it reached the consistency of maple syrup.

Monster of a Cake

On cutting the cake it felt just a little hard and all my fears of a dry cake seamed to be coming true. But when one ate the cake it was moist and soft so I was quite baffled.

Coconut Carrot Cake

Coconut Carrot Cake

The last cake I baked was made similar to the coconut cake, but with two thirds of coconut to a third of grated carrots and no milk only butter.










Anyway, this cake is so different from the coconut cake as the cakes are flat (probably because the moisture is less) and hence produce a small tea cake. To ice I used smooth cream cheese icing with desiccated coconut.

Messy plate :(

Please let me know of any cakes you would like me to try out next and just general food recipes are also welcome.

Almond Cake

It has certainly taken a while to post the "iced" almond naartjie cake pictures! And no, I did not just ice my cake today. Fruit cakes do not keep well for long periods of time unless one has added (and keeps adding) some form of liquor to the cake.

Anyway, I decided to go with a kumquat marmalade as the icing bit.

Kumquat covered Almond Naartjie 

Kumquat marmalade used to "ice" the cake

The reviews on this method of "icing" weren't great. Overall, everyone liked the actual cake - my cousin and I put our taste buds to good use to ensure the ingredients were well balanced before baking. On tasting the batter, we opted for it to be a bit too sweet and upon baking the cake sweetness was just right. Even my father, who is not the sweet-toothed sort of man enjoyed it. My father's reaction to the cake was the marmalade was "not the icing on the cake and overpowers all other flavours".

Now I, and anyone else who wants to try this recipe, know that serve the cake as it is. No icings, unless of course you go with the hazelnut icing used for the cupcakes.

Flour-less Almond Naartjie Cake should be served without an icing
for better appreciation of its natural flavour of almonds and naartjies