Shortening?

Being a self confessed Pinterest addict, I am always frustrated by the lack of South African ingredients, instructions and resources. One of the most elusive ingredients for me has been Crisco vegetable shortening. Most of my favourite recipes include this strange and illusive substance. Butter has been my substitute in most instances, but I have always yearned to find out what this magical ingredient would do to my creations.

While shopping at one of the larger retailers, low and behold, I found a tiny 125g block of Holsum solid vegetable fat – Eureka! I have since used it in both my buttercream icing and marshmallow fondant. It is awesome and I’d say essential for the fondant. However, do not substitute it into pure buttercream icing. It tastes disgusting. It makes for fabulous piping and sets beautifully hard but I don’t think I could eat a cake made and filled with this icing, it really is quite terrible. I may use a little in my buttercream for the stability but I’ll be sure to disguise it with lots of butter and vanilla essence.

Durban Tourist – 10 Things in One Day

We love our anniversary. Every year, my husband and I celebrate this special day with style. Our ninth anniversary was no different, except for the fact that it was our first in our new home. We decided to celebrate the day as tourists in our new city. We set the goal of trying to fit as many activities as we could into one day.

This is what we managed in one day:

1.     Early morning run along the Umhlanga Promenade

2.     Breakfast at Remos in the Umhlanga Village

3.     Trip up the Moses Mabhida Stadium Skycar

4.     Segway trip along the beachfront and into the empty stadium

5.     Rented a tandem bicycle and rode from the Stadium to Addington Hospital

6.     Cocktail at the Oyster Box Hotel in Umhlanga

7.     Craft Beer at Franks Speakeasy in Mount Edgecombe

8.     Hit a bucket of golf balls at the Mount Edgecombe Country Club Driving Range

9.     Glass of champagne at a Friend's house on the Mount Edgecombe Country Estate

10.  Beautiful dinner at Ile Maurice in Umhlanga

A pretty successful day…

Homemade Fondant

I used this recipe to cover
this cake. Not for the flowers

Up until recently, I have always purchased my fondant at Bake-a-Ton in Pinetown. Their Premium Icing brand is tasty and easy to use. However, it does make the cake quite expensive. I promised myself that I would try to make my own fondant at some point. 

 

I had a cake order for one of my customers this past week and I used the opportunity to test this Marshmallow fondant recipe:

 

Ingredients

- 450g marshmallows (I had to sort the pink and white ones from two large packets. I got about 500g white ones)
- 3 tablespoons of water
- 1kg icing sugar
- Holsum vegetable shortening

First rub everything that is going to touch the fondant with a generous amount of shortening. This is a messy job and the shortening helps to keep the ingredients together. Don’t forget the spoons and all the bowls and the dough hook of the mixer.

Put 4 cups of icing sugar into the greased bowl of the mixer.

Melt the marshmallows in a big bowl with 3 tablespoons water. Microwave the marshmallows for 1 minute at a time stirring in between each minute. Once the marshmallows are completely melted (no lumps) you can add colouring at this point if you need a specific colour.

Add the marshmallows to the sugar and put the mixer on low.

Gently knead in most of the rest of the icing sugar.  Keep some aside for hand kneading later.

Test the fondant until it doesn’t stick to your fingers anymore. Add sugar until you reach this point.

Tip the fondant out onto a clean greased counter top or silicon mat. Hand knead the fondant using the rest of the icing sugar. Add water or microwave it for a few seconds if the fondant starts to crack or add sugar if it gets too sticky.

When you think the fondant is ready, test it by pulling it apart. It should stretch a little then break apart. If it is very stretchy, add more sugar.

Wrap it up in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight to set.

This fondant isn’t suitable for modeling as it doesn’t harden particularly well but it is very well suited to covering cakes.

Baking Bread

Fresh bread, who can resist?  I am determined to add bread making to my baking repertoire. After all, it looks so simple, just a few ingredients, a bit of kneading and some time in the oven. Ja right! I think perhaps I chose the wrong recipe for my first few attempts. I am keen to be able to bake a nice big white sandwich loaf but it seems like this is probably one of the most difficult types of bread to make. The yeast needs to be just right and I don’t think that instant yeast will work for make a really nice light loaf.  The loaves I made tasted good but were very cake-y and dense and very small. After three failed attempts I gave in and tried easier recipe.

Now, beer bread is way easier to make, the kids made this loaf and it turned out beautifully.  We are going to make this whenever we have a braai. It also made mouthwatering toast.

Ingredients:
330ml bottle of beer
1/4 cup white sugar
3 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup melted butter (to brush on top of loaf while baking)

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.
2. Grease a small loaf pan with cooking spray.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Slowly pour the beer in and mix.  The dough will be quite sticky, but this is correct.
5. Transfer the dough to the loaf pan and leave it to rise for 30 minutes
6. Bake in the 180 degree oven for 45-50 minutes, brushing with melted butter halfway through the cooking time. Bake until the top is brown and crunchy and the center is soft.

Slime, Glorious Slime

During one of my regular Pinterest trawls for holiday activities for the kids, I stumbled onto a recipe for homemade Slime.  The original recipe calls for Borax – another of the mystery ingredients that I have no idea where to find.  Further investigation into Borax showed that this is a terrible cleaning chemical used in Laundry detergent – definitely not suitable for small children.  Undeterred, I kept searching and I did find a better recipe. 

We had awesome fun making it. Its easy, fun, tactile and quick. Its also not sticky!

Homemade Slime

Two tablespoons Psylum Husk – I found this labeled as “colon cleanse” at the health shop.

1 ½ cup water

Food Colouring (I used both gel colour and powder colour, both worked fine)

Mix the husk and food colouring in a big pot. I also added some edible glitter for some sparkle. Add the water. Boil the mixture on the stove for six minutes. It will stiffen up and stick together. Once the time is up, transfer the gloop to a bowl and let it cool. 

It did leave a bit of sludge on the bottom of the pan but it came off with a bit of soaking.

If the slime sticks to your fingers, try a little less water.

UShaka Kids World

Perhaps I have been living with my head under a rock for the past two years, but I didn’t realize that there is more to our Ushaka than Wet and Wild and Sea World.  I read about Kids World and decided to give it a visit. Wow, what a fantastic discovery!

The Pirate jungle gym is amazing, definitely the biggest one I have ever seen. My girls had the best fun shooting the water cannon at the Wet and Wild visitors on the Lazy river. The sprinkler park was great safe water fun.

The park was quite empty when we visited so they didn’t have any shows, instead we were able to touch the Birds and meet and greet with the Ushaka mascots.

Tip: Unlike the other sections of Ushaka, you are allowed to take in food purchased at certain outlets in the Village.

We spent a great day at Kids World and will definitely visit again.

Roller What?

I skated as a kid. I was lucky enough to have a tennis court in my yard growing up in Johannesburg. I would skate for hours on the rough green surface on my neon yellow skates two sizes too big. These memories came flooding back on my first visit to the beautiful Durban promenade. The need for a new pair of skates overcame me and I purchased a pair from the Skate Shop next to Circus Circus.

After a disastrous and rather painful first attempt at skating on the promenade, I googled “skate training” to see if I could find a coach to help me find my skate zone again. I found a Facebook page with a small group of girls that skated at Moses Mabhida stadium on a Monday evening. I packed my things and headed over at the first opportunity. It was raining, but a small bunch of girls were still skating. They welcomed me like a long lost sister and introduced me to the world of Roller Derby. 

Wikipedia describes Roller Derby as a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups ("jams") in which both teams designate a scoring player (the "jammer") who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team. The teams attempt to assist their own jammer while hindering the opposing jammer.

For me it was a sisterhood of strong, creative, energetic women that I found a home with. They gave me instant friendship and constant motivation.  I also discovered a sport that was super fun to play, excellent exercise and I was surprisingly quite good at. 

Have a look at our league Facebook page Durban Derby. We have lots of open nights for new skaters and information on events and bouts which you can watch.