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My friend Rene Smuts gave me this recipe which in its original state should be baked as one large cake. I bake my marmite cakes in a twelve hole muffin tin so that everyone in my family knows EXACTLY how many cupcakes each of us may eat to make the divide fair, and yes, they really are thát delicious!!

These little cakes are great for breakfast, brunch, lunch or whenever the savoury cravings hit!

Preheat your oven to 190℃.

Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cups and give them a light spray with nonstick baking spray.

Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on high speed until you have a light and creamy mixture.

Add the egg and mix until incorporated.

Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into a separate mixing bowl. With the mixer running, add one or two spoonful of dry ingredients before adding a small amount of milk. Keep alternating until all the dry ingredients and milk is incorporated and mixed through.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared paper cups and bake for 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven

These jewel like tomato tarts are sweet, fresh and the perfect accompaniment to most summer meals. I like to drizzle mine with a balsamic vinegar reduction when I’m about to serve them but of course that is entirely up to you.

Preheat your oven to 220℃.

Spray or grease a twelve hole muffin tin.

Lightly dust your counter surface and roll the pastry to a thickness of about three millimetres.

Cut out rounds and line the tin.

Sprinkle half a teaspoon sugar into each pastry case and place the tomato on top, bottom facing up.

Drizzle with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 35 minutes. Remove from the oven.

Let the tarts cool for ten minutes or so before removing from the baking tin.

Drizzle with a balsamic vinegar reduction and/or olive oil and serve.

I was old when I went to chef school …. stress made me twice my age when I left! I knew attending one of the top three schools in the world would require hard work, giving up my old, ingrained kitchen habits and practice, practice, practice until one gets it perfect BUT, I never bargained on the amount of self-imposed stress it would put on me! This was particularly evident when we made crepes. These delicate French pancakes had to be “thin enough to read a newspaper through!” My kitchen instincts told me that I wanted mine to be comforting … Chef insisted on thin; I made mine chewy … Chef insisted on delicate, and on and on..and the stress!!!

I love everything French but honestly I like my pancakes the South African way: chewy, rather on the thick than thin side and fluffy and substantial in a good way and in my own kitchen, that is exactly the way I make them!

For the pancakes:

This makes a batch of about 20 pancakes which is what you will need for an average sized cake that will feed eight people that really like tiramisu and pancakes.

500ml cake flour

2ml baking powder

5ml salt

500ml milk

250ml water

125ml oil

3 eggs

Add the cake flour, baking powder and salt to the mixing bowl of a stand mixer.

Add the milk, water, oil and eggs to another mixing bowl and give it a really good whisk by hand so that the eggs break up and the ingredients mix together.

Fit the whisk attachment to the mixer and set it on low speed. Add the liquid ingredients in a trickle until the mixture starts to resemble a thick batter.

Turn the speed up a notch and keep adding the liquids. Stop pouring the liquids if you notice lumps in the batter and turn your mixer onto a high speed. Whisk until you see no more lumps, go back to a slower speed and add the rest of the liquid ingredients in a steady stream.

Give the batter a good whisk on high speed for about one minute.

Cover and leave to rest for at least an hour so that the flour can fully absorb the liquid ingredients.

Once rested, bake your pancakes. You will need oil in a non-stick pan for the first and/or second pancake and thereafter the oil in the batter should be enough to make the baking process joyful and oil less!

Leave the pancakes to cool completely before assembling.

Tiramisu filling:

500g mascarpone

250ml whipping/thick cream

30ml espresso coffee powder

15ml caramel extract or vanilla extract

50ml caster sugar, or more if you like it sweeter (taste as you go along)

Fit a stand mixer with the whisk attachment and soften the mascarpone by running the mixer on a low speed for a few minutes and scraping the mixture down every now and then.

Add the other tiramisu ingredients and whisk at medium/high speed until you have a thick creamy consistency that holds its shape.

Assemble your tiramisu cake by layering a pancake and two heaped tablespoons of tiramisu mixture. Keep building the cake until either the pancakes or the cream mixture runs out. Finish it off by dusting with cocoa powder and chocolate shavings.

Bake these apples when you have a craving for syrupy, cinnamon filled pastries.

Select the apples you want to bake. Wash and dry each thoroughly.

Cut off the tops and with a teaspoon, carefully take out the core and flesh so that you are left with a hollow apple.

Put the fleshy bits, some raisins and a splash of water into a small saucepan. Add some mixed spice, cinnamon and brown sugar and simmer to soften the fruit. Take off the heat and cool.

Don’t be fooled by how easy it is to make this bread. It is one of the best breads you will ever make with the least effort and will probably become one of your fall-backs in times to come!

Pancakes, no matter their shape, size, topping or filling, are like good entertainment: they fill a room with excitement! Different cultures have different variations on pancakes; they might be small and puffy, thin and large or simply average and tossed into the air! These baby dutch pancakes tick all the boxes and whether you bake them because they puff right out of the pan or because you crave a sweet, chewy delicious snack, you can be sure that you will be popular with whoever eats them.

This recipe produces enough batter for a large (24cm pan) pancake for four people or two greedy, hungry people. I make two pancakes from this batter in a 16cm pan.

3 eggs

180ml cake flour

180ml milk, warmed for 30 seconds in the microwave oven

15ml sugar

10ml vanilla essence

a pinch of salt

45ml butter, for frying

icing sugar for dusting

Preheat your oven to 180℃

Add the butter to a cast iron frying pan or any other pan that can go into the oven – no plastic handles! If you don’t have an oven-friendly pan you may use a cake tin instead.

Leave the pan and butter in it, in the preheated oven to become really hot.

Add all the ingredients for the batter into a food processor or a container suitable for a stick blender. Blend really well until all lumps have dissolved and you have a smooth batter.

Open the oven, swirl the hot butter around and up the sides of the pan and immediately pour the batter into the pan.

Close the oven door and set a timer for 20 – 25 minutes.

Once cooked, remove the pan from the oven and transfer your beautifully golden, puffed pancake to a serving plate. Dust with icing sugar and spoon fruit, Chantilly cream or ice cream into the hollow.

Once you have devoured the pancake you may make another batch ….. they are quite sinful!

Easy, quick, delicious…..

1x 385g can of condensed milk

600ml double cream

60ml instant coffee powder

30ml vanilla essence

Add all the ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or add it to a mixing bowl and whisk by hand until the mixture forms soft peaks. It should be thick and foamy!

Fill a 2 litre container, seal with a lid and place in the freezer for a minimum of 6 hours.

I love aubergine, eggplant, brinjal … whatever you want to call this beautiful deep purple veg, I love cooking and eating it. This dish is more of an idea than a recipe and truly simple and uncomplicated but like most things simple, it is utterly delicious.

Preheat your oven to 190℃.

Slice an aubergine lengthwise into 1,5cm thick slices, keeping them together as a whole, as in the photograph above.

Brush some olive oil onto all the cut/raw, fleshy surfaces and sprinkle with salt.

Now lay a slice of tomato as well as a slice of mozzarella onto each slice.

Once you are done, drizzle generously with olive oil and stick them into the oven for about 40 minutes or until the aubergine is soft and gooey and the cheese toasty and melted.

Take from the oven and enjoy straight away with flatbread or a crusty white.

Bon appetito!

Ricotta is one of the most versatile ingredients in the kitchen: it often makes for the main ingredient in baked cheesecake, it adds a wonderful richness to any vegetable bake (especially potato), it is delicious baked in the oven with some honey drizzled over and a sprinkling of seeds or herbs and even served fresh with a tomato salad.

Ricotta is easily available but believe me, homemade is just sooo much better!

1 litre full cream milk

500ml double thick cream

5ml salt

45ml white vinegar

Pour the milk and cream into a large saucepan. Stir in the salt and bring it to the boil over a low heat, stirring occasionally.

Remove from the heat and stir in the vinegar.

Leave the mixture to stand for two minutes until it curdles. It will separate into curds and whey.

Line a large sieve or colander with a damp piece of muslin cloth and place this over a large bowl or sink.

Pour the milk mixture into the sieve and leave for 40 minutes.

You can scoop the mixture into a container to refrigerate or drain it even further by hanging the cheese in muslin cloth bound by string and then tying it to a wooden spoon, leaving it overnight to drain and firm up in the fridge – as in the above picture.

You now have wonderfully fresh ricotta to utilise as you please.

This is a luxurious version of hot cross buns for those who are not fond of the dried fruits and spices in the traditional version. These buns have a wonderful warmth from the cardamon, melting rich chocolatey insides and a refreshing orange glaze topped off with pistachio. Yum!

50g butter

50g brown sugar

6 cardamon pods, crushed

50g pistachios, finely chopped

zest of one orange

150g dark chocolate, chopped

200ml milk

1 egg

400g bread flour

50g cocoa powder

10g dried yeast

Add the butter, sugar, crushed cardamon pods and orange zest to a small saucepan and combine over a low heat. 

Add a pinch of salt and stir until the butter has melted and the mixture is lukewarm.

Remove from the heat and add the milk and egg. Whisk well.

Add the flour, cocoa and yeast to a separate mixing bowl and stir through.

Pour the milk mixture into this dry mixture and stir to form a rough dough.

Turn the dough out onto a dusted work surface and knead for 10min until smooth and elastic.

Lightly oil a mixing bowl and transfer the dough to it. Cover with a damp tea towel and place in a warm place. Leave the dough to prove for 1 – 2 hours until doubled in size.

In the meantime, chop the chocolate into pieces that are more or less the size of rice grains.

When the dough is ready, place it on a surface dusted with flour and knock out the air by kneading it for a minute or so.

Sprinkle the chopped chocolate onto the dough and start kneading. Push the pieces of chocolate that fall out back into the dough.

Preheat your oven to 180℃ and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball.

Place the buns 1cm apart on the prepared tray, leaving room between them to expand.

Cover with a damp tea towel and prove for 40 minutes or until doubled in size.

Mix 30 – 45ml of flour with some water to make a thick batter. Pour the batter into a piping bag or make your own by using the corner end of a plastic bag and simply snipping off the tip of the corner.

Pipe a steady line across an entire row of buns. Keep doing this until all the buns have crosses on them.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Transfer the buns to a cooling rack.

Glaze:

100g icing sugar

zest of one orange

10ml orange juice

3 cardamon pods

Place all the ingredients into a small saucepan and heat over a very low heat, stirring constantly.

Paint the glaze onto the warm buns and sprinkle with the pistachio nuts.