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French Strawberry Tart

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It strawberry season again and perfect to enjoy a glamorous French Strawberry tart... I have always had problems making this delicious melt in the mouth pastry that is called pate sablee ( translated into sand pastry).. Think I have now perfected it and  will share it here. Pate Sablee 150 g butter 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp icing sugar Sift icing sugar Mix at low speed and combine 1 egg yolk and 1 hard boiled egg yolk grated mix into batter add 1/2 tsp vanilla 1 cup and 3/4 cake flour Take out 2 tbsp flour and replace with 2 tbsp corn starch Sift the flour 1/4 tsp salt Mix only until it is well blended Then wrap dough into cling wrap and chill Roll out dough with floured  rolling pin into 1/8 inch thickness   and larger than the   18 inch pastry tin you are going to use. You can trim the pastry using your rolling pin over the top of the tin. Make holes   in the pastry with a fork   and chill for about ½ hour. Bake at 175 deg C for
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Jam with only 30% sugar… and I thought it can’t be done !!! January 31, 2012 in Uncategorized No Comments » Tags: jam , plumbs I love jam! Yes I admit it and yes I do know it is definitely not good for my hips ! I just love a slice of toast smothered with cream cheese and topped with whole fruit jam. I have been searching the internet for ages to find a recipe that uses very little sugar, does not need gelantine or artificial pectin and was really convinced it could not be done until recently when I read the blog from one of our bloggers here ( so sorry I just cannot remember who it was and posted a delicious recipe for strawberry jam that took 10 minutes to make) . The recipe worked amazingly well using my new wok with a glass lid (in order to see what cooking underneath … Plumb Jam I first started using her method ( gosh I wish who it was so I could thank her ..) and made apricot jam using 50% sugar. I left a few pips in just in case and it took exactly 15
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Zimtsterne – Swiss Christmas Cookies December 14, 2011 in Uncategorized No Comments » Its this time of the year again that we all remember certain things from our childhood. For me it was always the incredible smells of my Granny who was Swiss baking mountains of Christmas cookies for 4 weeks before the actual day. My most favourite was always the Zimtsterne ( Cinnamon Stars) which I still bake today to give away as presents to family and friends. Ingredients for approximately 50 cookies (depending on the size of a single cookie): 3 fresh egg whites 1 pinch of salt 250 g icing sugar sugar 1½ tbsp cinnamon ½ tbsp kirsch or lemon juice 350 g ground almonds Preparation: Stir white of egg and salt in a bowl until it is real stiff. Add icing sugar, stir until ingredients are evenly distributed. Put ½ cup aside for the icing. Add cinnamon, kirsch (or lemon juice) and almonds, knead to a soft dough. Roll out dough on a flat surface (it should be slightly c
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Beetroot Mousse December 7, 2011 in Uncategorized 2 Comments » Tags: beetroot , mousse , verrine Last night I hosted another dinner for 14 Americans and as a couple of them were vegitarians I did not do my normal “fishy” sort of starter. I am currently reading loads of recipes on verrines from books a friend of mine lent me… Oh so many incredible variations are there and all easy to make and delicious. What appeals to me particulary is that the quantities are small, basically just a taste and not any more these huge quantities of food from yesteryear… Look at these awesome colours !! Ingredients: (for about 10 smallish glasses/portions) 1 pkt Beetroot ( about 8 pieces) 1 tub Creme Fraiche 1 tub Cream Cheese Juice of 1 lemon Salt & pepper Boil the beetroot the night before. Peel and cut into quarters. In liquidizer mix beetroot, creme fraiche and cream cheese to a smooth consistancy. Add lemon, salt and pepper… and that’s it ! Let is go very cold in fridge
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Pizza at Home December 3, 2011 in Uncategorized No Comments » A couple of months ago my son was asked by an old friend of mine to do a promotional dvd for his new Earthfire pizza oven that is now also available at Yuppie Chef . They decided that my home is the right place to film it and many hours and many pizzas later I was hooked and bought this amazing contraption and have never bought a pizza again from anywhere else!… It is so easy and quick and I think the best and cheapest fun way to entertain during this time of the darn recession !!! So today is another one of those days that boys have invited their mates to come and “do” pizzas. I agreed to make the tomato base with those lovely fresh herbs from my garden and also supplied the pizza topping for the Dessert Pizza : Ingredients for Dessert Pizza: Sliced banana ; pieces of Camambert, chopped walnuts, dabs of sweet chilli sauce, NOMU chocolate sprinkles :) totally awesome ! To see just how easy it is to
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Connor's Birthday Cake

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Being a Granny to a 2 year old has certain duties attached to it... one of them being the making of a birthday cake! I love birthday cakes, especially those that don’t come from some shop but are home-made. So there I was last week with the task to produce a “beach cake”.. as Connor and family live next to the beach it was definitely the way to go. I am fortunate enough to live in Cape Town where we have a shop that just does baking stuff and equipment ! ( Baking Tin in Claremont). Having scoured the shop for anything beachy I started the elimination of my chocolate recipes in the many books lining my shelves and decided on the absolute yummiest one I could find which is David Lebowitz . This recipe comes out of his wonderful book called “The Sweet Life in Paris” and can be bought here from Amazon.com. For the beach cake: 250 g bittersweet or semisweet chocolate ( I used half & half) 8 tbsp ( 120 g) unsalted butter 1/3 cup ( 65 g) sugar 4 large eggs at room temperature s
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Coronation Chicken

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Last Saturday was the annual Moonstruck charity event on 4th beach Clifton. What a great event and thank goodness we  went early and found a lekker spot against the rocks as it ended up being 36 000 people on that beach. The concert was organised by Radio 702 and one of the performers was Vivky Samson who finished her her set with her signature song that makes every expat overseas homesick with a dose of "wet eyes" - My African Dream - brings goosebumps every time I hear it. No vino allowed unfortunately but we all brought some nice munchies. One of my friends had Coronation Chicken. I must say it was the first time I ate this really nice way of using up day old chicken as with me having done my apprentiship in a German kitchen,  there was definitely no coronation :):):):).... We had something similar and called it Hawaien Chicken Salad.. So here goes with the South African version of Coronation Chicken: Ingredients: 2 either freshly cooked or day-old chicken breast
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