Baking for Caking

Dear Julia and Frida

On the 20th of May it was Farah Fennel's birthday. It was a most interesting day, because she decided that what she wanted to do for her birthday was bake. This turned out to be most fitting, because our mother just happened to find out that the 20th of May 2012 was actually world baking day! Who knew!

After further web searching about this elusive world baking day, we stumbled across quite a fun element to the day, which was called caking!

Basically what you were meant to be doing on the 20th of May this year was to bake something, and then place it in a strange or different location, take a picture of it, and then post it on social networks as "#caking".

This turned out to me quite a lot of fun.

Farah made some DELICIOUS chocolate beetroot cupcakes and then I had a lot of fun walking around putting them in random places and taking photos.

I'm not sure if the world baking day was a once off thing or not, but if not, and if it does happen again next year, I HIGHLY recommend participating. It really is fun to use those creative juices trying to find somewhere interesting to take a picture of your baked goodie(s).


It really was a lot of fun trying to see where it would look strange and interesting to put the cup cakes that Farah had made, and how lucky I was that the new house she and her Boyfriend had bought is so full of possibilities for some very fun photos.

Their house is very nice, with a bit of old meets new going on, it's a super cozy house, and it has a lovely big garden full of funny statues which the previous owner left behind... now THEY came in handy :D hehehehe.

So here are the #caking pictures taken that day... I hope you'll appreciate the fact that I'm even in one of them :D.

Looks like I have a little cup cake hat on my head... (personally I think it actually suits me:)

Sincerely

May Marjoram

May Marjoram - Cake on head

#Cake on Decorative Jar

#David likes cake

#Stig and storm trooper caking

#Cakes like to swing

#Cake on a tap

Banana fritters

Dear Julia.

Here is a special recipe from our F1 cuisine club!

I think this one actually deserves some special mention because, this little recipe has been such a hit with the F1 cuisine club that we have repeated it for a couple of years now already. IN FACT I think it has been repeated three times!

If you love banana then these are probably for you! We've been known to eat them on their own, or with ice cream! nom nom!

Just think of it, banana, gooey, crispy goodness! YUM! Banana fritters = LOVE!

Ingredients (Serves 6-8):

4 large ripe bananas mashed
6-8 Tablespoons of flour
2 Tablespoons rice or cornflour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda/baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
Vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

Easy-peasy-squeezy! Mix all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

Add about a tablespoon at a time to a medium heat pan with the vegetable oil in it and fry until golden brown! Enjoy!

Enjoy!

Sincerely

May Marjoram

Dim sum

Dear Julia


I don't know about you, but for most of my life when I would say I feel like Chinese food, that actually meant I felt like either sweet and sour chicken or pork, or chicken chop suey, with chow mein (noodles), and some spring rolls and a fortune cookie.

We get so stuck into these habits where we try one thing, like it, and then that is all we eat from that take away or restaurant for the rest of time.

Last year though, I was fortunate enough to be invited by to go up for a trip to Joburg (Johannesburg) by my Fiancee's parents.

There they have a flat which they stay in, because they often have to travel there for business, and literally a block away from that flat is a lovely Chinese restaurant.

They had been there before, and met with the manager, and on her recommendation they had tried some different things there at the restaurant and had really enjoyed it, so on our trip, they insisted on taking us there to try the food.

Again what they did was ask the manager if she could please recommend some things that we should try.

This woman was amazing! She asked us some questions about what types of flavours we usually like, what our feelings are about different meats, how we feel about hot spicy foods, etc. From our answers, she came up with the recommendation that we eat family style, and that she would bring us some options to all try together based on our answers.

The meal that night then came into being as  the most amazing Chinese meal I had ever experienced. This is the night I had my first pot sticker! It was a beautiful pan fried pork dumpling. The wonton wrapper encasing the pork was soft and silky, but with a slight crunch where it had come into contact with the pan, and the pork inside was amazingly juicy and tasty!

The pot stickers were dipped into a garlic soya sauce which paired so well with the pork! I was in love! Other dishes we had that night included peppery beef stir fry, pecking duck with pancakes and plum sauce, sweet and sour fish, and chocolate and banana spring rolls with red bean paste!!

My favourite meal of the night though HAD to be the little pan fried pork dumplings, and it has become my mission to find the beauties at the same quality somewhere here in Cape Town.

The closest I have found so far were at Jade Court.

Pot stickers (pan fried dumplings) and Wontons

My Fiancee and I had a lovely meal at Jade Court (Tygervalley Waterfront) where he went for the cholesterol friendly option of a sushi platter, and I went about trying to recreate some of my lovely experiences of the Chinese place in Joburg.

I had myself some pan fried pork dumplings, and decided to try out the deep fried prawn wontons as well.

The deep fried wontons I can assure you are worth it! lovely mouthfuls with sweet prawn inside and crispy! The pan fried pork dumplings and their garlic soy dipping sauce compared with the Joburg restaurant in flavour very well. The pork inside was moist and juicy and had the same lovely saltiness as the Joburg ones, so on the flavour front, spot on.

However I am still in search of a pot sticker to match the texture I experienced in Joburg. I found in comparison the dumpling was a little chewier not the silkiness of the wonton wrapper I had experienced in Joburg, but I can definitely say that I'd go back and have them again, and again and again!

Sincerely

May Marjoram