Espresso Cake for Baby Shower

Little girls are soft, pink, pudgy, wet, and cause for great celebration. A colleague of mine is said baby's daddy-to-be, and he'd been asking for this cake for almost a year now (We both love Smitten Kitchen). I'm not a huge fan of coffee, and so I've just be putting off, but I wish I hadn't. This cake is so balanced, the smooth softness of the cake, the creaminess of the icing, the bitterness of the coffee, and even that slightly drunken rum taste.

I work as a programmer in finance, so for the past couple of years I've been working almost exclusively around men. I have to say.. I miss girls SO MUCH. I miss drinking tea, caring about each other's lives and having all this wonderful support that women provide for each other. However, every now and again, I'm allowed to have feelings around here and I go all out!

One great thing about working with men- if I make them a cake, they eat it! Even if they're supposed to be on a diet.

Espresso Chiffon Cake with Fudge Frosting
From Smitten Kitchen

Cake:
60 ml (1/4 cup) canola oil
6 eggs, separated
90 ml espresso (for those of us who don't own a machine- this is roughly a triple espresso)
10 ml (2 tsp) vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup cake flour
250 ml (1 cup) sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
125 ml (1/2 cup) sugar

Syrup:
80 ml (1/3 cup) espresso
125 ml (1/2 cup) sugar
80 ml (1/3 cup) dark rum

Icing:
180 g dark chocolate (I used Bournville)
4 1/2 cup icing sugar
360 g unsalted butter
45 ml milk
45 ml cream
1 tblsp vanilla extract

1) Preheat oven to 180 C. Get 3x 8 or 9 inch cake tins, and line the bottom with wax paper. Don't grease.
2) Combine canola oil, egg yolks, espresso, and vanilla in a medium bowl.
3) Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a separate bowl.
4) Beat the egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy, add sugar gradually, and beat to soft peak stage.
5) Fold together egg yolk mixture and dry ingredients.
6) Add a large spoonful of the egg white mixture, and fold in gently.
7) Add the rest of the egg white mixture and fold in completely.
8) Split the mixture between the pans. Bake cakes for about 15-20 minutes depending on depth, until a toothpick comes out clean.
9) Take tins out, and let the cakes cool in them.
10) Mix together espresso, sugar and rum in a small bowl.
11) Melt the chocolate, cool, then place all the ingredients for the icing in a bowl and mix until smooth.
12) Now, take you final serving plate, and begin with the first cake. Place it in the centre, and use a brush to soak it with the syrup. Then add about a 2 cm layer of icing.
13) Add another cake on top, repeat the soak and icing.
14) Add the final layer of cake, soak, and now ice all around the cake, piping around the edges.
15) Decorate at will!

Vetkoek and Mince

In my mind, this is just the best South African meal. Ralph's cafeteria used to make it as a special on Thursdays and I would exercise extra hard just so that I could go over there and have some. I guess people who haven't tried it would compare it to a curry sloppy Joe? Except the vetkoek itself is so much better than just some roll.

I made this as the main course for our Mother's Day meal. Vetkoek is very similar to a dish my grandma used to make, and both my mom and I love to be reminded of her. In her recipe, she would make a mince mixture, and fold the dough around it, leaving some of it peeking out. I can still picture her tiny hands (is Radiohead playing in your head right now?) smoothly and professionally pulling and squeezing the dough wrap around the mince. 

I know people feel content with buying their mom presents and special meals for Mother's Day, and I tend to do the same. But is there ever really enough you can do to show your mom just how important she is? Does spending a day in the kitchen making her one special meal tell her how much it means to you that she made you mashed potatoes every day for months when you were little and refused to eat anything but that and pickles?

Vetkoek and Mince

From The Ultimate Book of Baking by Heilie Pienaar (no longer in print)

4 cups cake flour

15 ml sugar

3 ml salt

10 g instant dry yeast (1 packet)

30 ml sunflower or canola oil (I would even use olive)

About 400 ml lukewarm water

Sunflower or Canola oil, for deep frying

2 onions, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped (or crushed)

500 g lean beef mince

20 ml curry powder

5 ml masala

3 ml turmeric

2 ml ground cumin

3 medium potatoes, chopped into small cubes (I like very small)

1 medium carrot, grated

About 250ml beef stock

1) Whisk together flour, sugar, salt and yeast. 

2) Add oil. 

3) Add water, bit by bit, until the dough comes together. It should be quite soft. 

4) Knead until it becomes smooth and elastic. 

5) Place in a bowl covered in a damp cloth to rise, until doubled in size.

6) Knock down and knead a bit. Then divide into balls. I made roughly tennis-sized balls, but traditionally you would want them flattish and about double the diameter.

7) Heat the oil in a deep pot (oil should be at least 8-10 cm deep) on a medium heat. Fry the dough balls until deep brown. The larger the balls, the lower the heat, as you want them to cook through. Drain on a kitchen towel before serving.
Now for the mince:

8) Heat some oil in a large pan, fry onions until translucent, add the garlic and fry until fragrant.

9) Add the mince, and fry until brown and caramelised.

10) Add the spices and cook for a couple of minutes. It should start smelling pretty fantastic.

11) Add potatoes and carrot, and add enough stock to cover everything. Cook until potatoes are tender, and sauce has thickened.

12) Serve warm mince inside the vetkoek, preferably very fresh, as it has a wonderful crunch when it is.

Roast Garlic and Bacon Guacamole for Mother's Day

I feel like it's almost cliche to talk about how wonderful my mom is.. I mean.. Doesn't everyone just adore their moms? Who else do they call when they're happy, sad, bored or insecure?

She's always good for a hug, a kiss and just passionate support for everything from looking for a new job to trying to make the perfect fried egg. She wants to buy me something pretty, even when she really shouldn't. 

She wants to make me a giant beer glass full of lemon tea and cheese sandwiches when I'm sick, because she knows that there's a time to stop worrying about your diet and just relax. Even if I don't agree, I can rarely resist.

My mom and I used to experiment with guacamole all the time. We loved avocados so much. Only recently did I go to a proper Mexican restaurant and find out the right way to do things. I got myself a pestle and mortar, and so far I've been pretty successful! This was my latest experiment, and I have to say, I'll be adding roast garlic to many other dishes now! Thanks so much Alaina from Fabtastic Eats!

Roast Garlic and Bacon Guacamole
Adapted from Fabtastic Eats

1 full head of garlic
5 rashes of bacon, diced
1 red onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 green chillies, diced
small handful of Coriander, chopped
3 avocados
1 lime, juiced

1) Preheat oven to 220 C. Cut of the top of the head of garlic, so that the tips of the cloves are exposed. Place on a piece of foil large enough to wrap it. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil, wrap it up, and roast it for 30 minutes.
2)  While the garlic is roasting, fry the bacon until crispy.
3) Get out a pestle and mortar, add the onion, pepper, chillies, and coriander in, and pound them for a while to get out the juices, flatten them out, and mix them together.
4) In a medium bowl, dump out the contents of the mortar, peel and deseed the avocados, and add them too.
5) Mash the mixture through with a fork.
6) Season with salt and white pepper (if find white pepper works nicely with avo), and add a tablespoon or so of lime juice.
7) Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves into the mixture and work through.
8) Finally, add the bacon.
9) Taste and correct for seasoning and you can add more lime juice if you like.
10) Serve fresh. (we found the little bit of leftovers we had got very garlicky in the fridge overnight) (but we ate them anyway)