Jan Smuts koekies

I could not think of an English name for these! 🙂 They are named after General Jan Smuts that was the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 to 1924.

When I moved to New Zealand I struggled to find these pans that is not as deep as a muffin pan, so a friend of mine found them at a second hand shop and now I have the perfect pans to make them in. You can make them in a muffin pan but only use half of the cup to make these.

Preheat the oven to 190 °C (375 °F)

Spray the pans with cooking spray or grease them with margarine

Crust:

750 ml (400 g) of flour

10 ml baking powder

1 ml salt

250 g butter or margarine at room temperature

250 ml sugar

2 eggs, whisked

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt.

Rub the margarine/butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips until it looks like a fine crumble.

Add the sugar and mix.

Add the eggs and mix until it looks like dough.

So the old recipes tell you to roll out the dough and cut into circles to fill the little pans, but I have found that if you roll them into little balls and then press them down with a dough press. I got this one from my mom and she used to call it a patty pan press. 🙂

Filling:

125 g of butter or margarine at room temperature

150 ml sugar

2 eggs, whisked

225 ml flour

5 ml baking powder

100 ml fine apricot jam at room temperature

Cream the butter/margarine and sugar together

Add eggs and mix.

Sift the flour and baking powder together and mix with the egg mixture.

Spoon about 2 ml of jam into the crust and then add a tablespoon of filling on top

Bake them for 15 min until golden brown and let them cool on a wire cooling rack.

TIP: I sometimes have to make 1 ½ times the filling mixture because I like to have a lot of filling in the tarts.

This will make about 4 dozen

Buttermilk Rusks/ Karringmelk beskuit

 

This is so easy to make and they last a long time in an airtight container. That is if you do not have a husband in the house that can not stop eating it!

To my Kiwi friends: This is a breakfast biscuit that we enjoy in the morning with our coffee (or actually anytime of the day). This is not just for babies as the tradition has it in New Zealand, but we all love it and it has been known to be given to babies when they are teething.

We also like to make them in different flavors and recipes, like whole wheat, aniseed and bran.

1.5 Kg Flour

100 ml baking powder

7.5 salt

500 g margarine

1 container of buttermilk(600g)

3 eggs

375 ml of sugar

Turn on the oven to 180 °C and use two swiss roll pans and spray with cooking spray.

Melt the butter at low heat.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl

Combine the sugar and eggs and beat well

Add the buttermilk to the eggs mixture and mix well, then add the melted butter.

Combine the eggs mixture with the flour mixture and knead the dough.

Divide the dough in two and spread into the pans

Bake for about 25 min

Let it cool down and then cut into required pieces

Place on a cooling rack and air dry at about 110 °C in the oven

TIP: I do find it is much faster if you have it on a cooling rack so the air can flow around the rusk, but is not and you are putting them on a tray in the oven, just make sure to turn them occasionally.

Snacks for the family

So today I thought I would try and make enough snacks for the week. While typing this I start smiling because from experience I should know that it will not last a week! 🙂

So peanut brittle, granola bars and rice cripies / rice bubble slices were on the list to make.

Peanut brittle is still on the stove, but the others are done.

I have tried a new recipe with the granola bars, so as soon as we have tried it, I will post the recipe.

Rice bubble recipe will follow as soon as it has cooled down and I can take a photo of it, so keep a look out for all the recipes!

So all of this took me 1 1⁄2 hours and I have snack and sweet for the men in my life. 🙂

Date Balls (Dadelballetjies)

 

The yummiest and easiest treat!

 

Ingredients:

250 g butter

250 ml (cup) of sugar

500 g dates (cut into smaller pieces)

400 g of Marie Biscuits (crushed)

10 ml vanilla essence

Coconut

 

Melt butter and sugar in a pot until sugar is dissolved.

Add the dates and keep stirring until dates are really soft or melted into the butter mixture.

Take off the stove and add essence and biscuits and mix well.

Let it cool slightly or until you can handle rolling the mixture into little balls.

Roll the balls in the coconut.

Ready to eat. 🙂

This makes about 40 date balls.

Keep in the fridge.

 

I am BACK!

After a few months of constant baking and then starting a new full time job, I have neglected my blog, but after settling in in my new job, I am ready to roll!!

 

Sorry for those that might think it will be baking, but at least I will share my recipes with you and hopefully inspire you to make some yourself. 🙂

For those that is far from home, it is always a comfort to have something that tastes like home.

Remember  for the people that joined my facebook page at a later stage that I already have some recipes on my blog, from

Vetkoek

 

Pancakes

 

and melktert

 

Vetkoek

I have posted a recipe before for vetkoek, but found this video on youtube from Mysakitchen.

For all my Kiwi friends, this is a deep fried bread filled with curry mince,  apricot jam and cheese or any filling of your choice.

Recipe works well if you just follow her steps.

Traditional Milktart- No baking!

I normally make the crustless milktart but I find this recipe really easy.

For the crust I used:

About 3/4 of a packet of Marie biscuits

125 g Margarine melted

1/2 cup of sugar

Mix it all together and press into the pan. While waiting for the filling I normally put this in the fridge.

 

Filling:

1 Liter milk

2 tablespoons of butter/margarine

1 cinnamon stick

Start heating over moderate heat until it starts to boil.

Liquidize the following ingredients:

80 ml flour

80 ml cornflour

1 ml salt

125 ml milk

200 ml sugar

3 eggs

5 ml vanilla essence

Add this to the milk that has started to boil.

Keep on stirring

It will start to look like a volcanic eruption! 🙂 Make sure there is not lumps and give it good few stirs again and then take it off the heat.

Pour into the prepared pan with the crust.

Leave to cool and sprinkle cinnamon on top.

Ready to eat!

Deconstructed Chocolate eclairs

So, I knew making pastry for eclairs is not very easy! ……And they were right!

I have never made it before, so mine did not rise at all, but being one that hates wasting, I thought I can do something with this. I had leftover filling from a milktart I made that I was going to use for the filling of the eclair! So I made  a deconstructed eclair!

I so often hear on the cooking shows that they make “deconstructed” whatever, and then it is just all the ingredients that they use and serve it differently, so….. this is my DECONSTRUCTED ECLAIR!
Made a little sandwich with the pastry with the custards filling in between .
For the chocolate topping I used 3 Mars bars and about 60 ml milk and melted it on slow heat on the stove. After melted, I just dropped teaspoon full on the top of the eclair and this was my result!

Delicious!

Maybe a bit messy to eat, but still delicious!!!

Pancakes

Normally I do not have any pancakes left, because my boys would have them for breakfast the next day, but when I heard that you can freeze them, I thought I would like to try. So I invited some friends over and I made a mountain of pancakes!

I never knew that I could freeze pancakes successfully , until my dad’s partner told me her brother freezes them. He would stack them with wax paper in between and in the freezer they go! After I stacked them I just put them in a plastic bag and into the freezer the went.

So two days ago we felt like having pancakes and I thought this will be our test! I defrosted them in the microwave and they were 100%.

Apparently it needs to be the recipe that has oil in it. Recipe is on my blog as well. 🙂

 

Vetkoek

 

Someone asked me to post a “vetkoek” recipe, so I had to find one that works for me first.

I have had several failures, edible but not the way I remembered, so had to give a few recipes a go and realized that the rising time is different than in South Africa. I think it is because it is so much warmer there! 😉

 

To the non South African this is a dough that is deep fried and then filled with curry mince or with apricot jam. These are one of the dishes that you would find traditionally at the school or church fete.

 

500 ml lukewarm water

10 ml sugar

10 ml active yeast

5 x 250 ml flour

10 ml salt

20 ml oil

Add the sugar to the water and stir

Add the yeast to the water and leave until yeast has risen to the top and looks a bit foamy.

Add the oil to the yeast mixture.

Then add this to the flour and salt mix.

Knead the dough until is sticky (about 10 minutes)

Leave to rise. About 1 hour in warm place or about 2 hours at room temperature.

Knead it down to knock out all bubbles and then shape into size you require

Then leave for another 20 minutes and then deep fry in oil

Ready to have with your favorite filling