Muffins...with a kick.

Here’s an easy muffin recipe. You can be creative and add whatever tickles your taste buds really. I added cheese, chili flakes for the kick, chives for a bit of freshness and chutney to sweeten the deal!

You will need:

400 g flour

20 ml baking powder

2 ml salt

200 g (375 ml) Cheddar cheese, coarsely grated

100 g butter

300 ml milk

4 large eggs

40 ml chutney

A handful of chopped chives

2 Tbs chili flakes

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Sift the dry ingredients together (including any dry ingredients you choose to add) and add the cheese.

Melt the butter and mix with the chutney (or other “wet” ingredients you like to add), allow to cool slightly then combine with the milk and eggs.

Add to the dry ingredients.

Fold gently with a wooden spoon - do not over-mix. The mixture should look lumpy.

Spoon into greased muffin pans, sprinkle with more cheese. 

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Turn onto a cooling rack to cool slightly.

Eat warm or at room temperature.

Easy as that!

Parkhurst

We had friends staying over last night and we decided to not have breakfast at home this morning but to have brunch at a restaurant. Seeing that Anton & Carolien are from Rustenburg where they are pretty much limited to Wimpy or Mugg & Bean for breakfast we took them to Parkhurst with all its street cafes and unique little shops.

I've heard about 4th Avenue Coffee Roasters before and its been on my to-do list for quite some time. Today was the perfect occasion.

The owner is quite something. I wanted to find out a bit more about the origins of his coffees, the roasting process (because I've heard that he roasts it on the premises), how he started the business etc.

This is a rough translation of our conversation:
Owner: "What can I get you?"
Me: "I don't know...Do you have different coffees? How do you serve them? Any advice?"
Owner "No. We only have 1 Coffee. The best coffee in the country. I'm not kidding. You tell me how you want it." And he moves on to the next customer.
So I put our order in and a few minutes later he brings the coffees.
Me: "Where are your coffees from?"
The Owner recites a list of about 10 countries.
Me: "Oh, so it's not single origin coffee? It's a blend then? Do you source the beans yourself?"
Owner: "What? You expect me to fly all over the world to go and find each supplier myself? Like the guys at 'Bean There'? No way. They have their little feel good story. whatever. This is the best."

The coffee was really really good. I wouldn't claim it to be the best in the country but that's just my opinion.

So next we made our way up 4th avenue to find a place to have brunch.
I saw that Vovo Telo opened a restaurant in 4th avenue. We've visited their original store in 44 Stanley before and I must say they've turned things up a notch with this new restaurant. It was packed and we didn't want to wait for table so I'll just have to add it to my to do list.

We sat down at Espresso and luckily before we ordered Karlien reminded me that they only accept cash - no cards. Waarmee is hulle besig? On top of that they are really pricey - R60 for Ciabatta with tomato & mozzarella. Seriously?
So 3rd time lucky, we finally settled on Bottega.
A restaurant that can serve a good red cappuccino easily wins me over!

The food was interesting, tasty and the portions generous.

Tomato & Basil Meatball Frittata

rye toast with emmenthal cheese, tomato, turkey breast
& poached eggs

rye toast topped with melted mozzarella, sliced tomato,
bacon & avo

Hashbrown stack with halloumi, brown mushrooms, bacon and pesto

There is a barber shop alongside Bottega but this is not your average barber shop! Plasma screens to watch your favourite sport, a cigar and a single malt whiskey selection to choose from while the old school barber snips away!

Cinnabon

I don’t know whose recipe this was, my brother-in-law forwarded it to me, but whoever it was…give that man (or more likely that lady) a Bell’s!

This is really simple and delicious. What I like about it most is that the icing is not too sweet.

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:

1kg        bread dough

1 cup     salted butter (melted)

1 cup     brown sugar

½ cup    cream cheese

1 cup     icing sugar

½ tsp     vanilla essence

Pinch of salt

Cinnamon according to taste

1 Flake (crumbled)

Melt half the butter.

Roll out the bread dough on a floured surface into a rectangular shape. I bought a bag of bread dough from the supermarket; they usually come in 1kg bags.

Be sure to roll out the dough as thin as possible. I didn’t roll it out thin enough and ended up with huge buns! They tasted just as good, no doubt - but you'll get more portions from the recipe if you make them smaller. Next time I would probably cut the dough into 2 equal pieces (lengthwise) to make sure that the rolls aren’t too thick.

By now the butter would have started to set just a little bit which is exactly what you want because you want to smear it over the dough surface. (Leave just enough butter to glaze the buns later)

Next sprinkle the sugar over the buttered surface followed by the cinnamon.

Place a sheet of baking paper on a baking tray. In fact use 2 baking trays if you can.

Roll up each rectangle into a long sausage and cut it into roughly 4cm pieces. Place each piece on the baking paper leaving enough space between them so that they can rise. They will easily double in diameter so make sure to leave enough space.

You can start with the icing while you let them rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.

Melt the other half of the butter and whisk it until it starts to cream. Add the cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla and salt and mix well until you have a smooth & silky texture.

Pre-heat the oven so long on 180 degrees.

When the buns have risen to double their original volume, melt the left-over butter from earlier and glaze the buns with butter. You’ll need to be gentle so that they don’t fall flat now.

Pop them in the oven for about 25 minutes.

I iced them immediately after they came out of the oven so that the icing could melt and be absorbed into the buns (about half the icing). Sprinkle the Flake over them and let them cool down.

Once they have cooled down,  apply the rest of the icing on top.

When working with meat or seafood you have to wash your hands often otherwise everything you touch in the kitchen is full of raw meat finger prints. What makes this recipe such a pleasure is that you don’t want to wash your hands but would rather lick your fingers clean!

Enjoy!

Taste Feast

Lia, a friend of mine, sent me this photo that she took somewhere in Cape Town.
There's a restaurant with my name on it...I need to go and find it!