My Favourite Scones

Fresh scones out the oven with a nice strong cup of tea, are one of the small joys in life. Served with jam and cream or even grated cheddar cheese, these are wonderful for tea time and one of my favourite recipes. Personally... I think these are the best!

Ingredients:
500ml (280g) flour
15ml baking powder
2ml salt
75ml (60g) castor sugar
65g margarine or butter
1 egg
125ml milk

Method:
Sift dry ingredients together then add sugar
Rub margarine into dry ingredients until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix egg and milk together and add to dry ingredients, forming a soft but not sticky dough
Turn out onto a floured surface and pat lightly. Place spoonfuls onto a greased baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 200ºC for 12-15minutes
Serve with jam and cream

*Makes about 8, depending on the size

Honey Cake

I love Honey Cake! We normally make it over Rosh Hashanah but to be honest that's a real shame as this is a delicious cake. The Honey Cake is a symbol of a "good and sweet year" in the Jewish religion so I suppose having this at my 30th bithday tea party can only bring good things for the year to come : )

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup honey (plus a little extra for good luck)
1 cup sugar
1 cup warm coffee
3 tablespoons margarine
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon allspice
Additional spices (optional)

Method:
Cream margarine and sugar
Add eggs then honey and continue to mix
Add sugar and mix again
Mix baking soda into coffee, then add to the mixture
Add remaining ingredients (optional cinnamon, ginger and ground cloves) and beat together well
Bake at 160ºC for about 70minutes
Sprinkle with icing sugar once cool

Biscuits for the Biscuit Maker

These have been some of my all time favourite biscuits to make. Yes, mainly I love using my cookie cutters that I have collected over the years, but also because these biscuits are delicious and bring back memorie of when I was small and used to bite the little petals off the flower biscuits my Granny Zelda used to make. These are delicious decorated with icing, maybe a smartie pressed into the centre or even some sugar sprinkled on top before baking.

Ingredients:
250g butter
125ml (100g) sugar
2 eggs
10ml vanilla essence
625ml (350g) flour
10ml baking powder
2ml salt

Method:
Cream butter and sugar together
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add essence
Sift dry ingredients together and add to creamed mixture. Mix well
Place dough in biscuit maker and press onto (or in my case roll out, then press out shapes with cookie cutters and place onto) a greasd baking tray
Bake in a preheated oven at 180ºC for 10minutes. Cool and store in an airtight container

*Makes about 80

Dressing

Really this post is all about the dressing. I first tasted this as a pasta salad in Israel and could not stop putting more spoonfuls on my plate. It's for any pasta salad really and whatever you would like to add to it that tickles your fancy.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon mustard powder mixed with a little hot water and sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup vinegar
1 cup canola oil
6 heaped tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt

Blend well with a blender and mix into your salad.

Lucky Fish

Travelling through to Muizenberg side later than 10am on the weekend means sitting in quite a bit of traffic, if you go on the main road. What should have been a 5 minute drive turned out to be more like 25 minutes. The company in the car was good though, so the only thing we arrived at Surfers Corner with were our hungry stomachs. I tried to give the heads up that the portions were big and that I happily share with my mom... but I know that feeling of being so hungry you just want your own food. The girls ordered hake, calamari and chip combos and I went with plain, good old fashioned fish and chips. There is nothing like a fresh piece of hake, with the soft melt away flakes that come from frying it in a crispy batter. Just cannot be beaten! It's something I crave when I am away from home... and when it is served wrapped up in paper with no need for any knives or forks (yes... I ate it all with my hands), including loads of All Gold tomato sauce with the chips... all I can say is it's finger licking good!

Crispy Chicken Salad

I sat through almost two hours of Chanukah traffic to get to Kfar Saba in order to visit family friends. I got a tour of the little suburb but unfortunately it was in the dark as in winter the sun is gone by 16:30 in the afternoon. It was a ladies evening out and we found ourselves at a place called Japanika, not the most creative of names but the food was good. I ordered this crispy chicken salad which came with pieces of tempura spring chicken (which were really lovely to bite into) and the most scrumptious dressing which I think made the whole dish - a vinaigrette of ginger, citrus and sesame. If I wasn't out at a restaurant or in company I would have tipped the bowl at the end to get the last drop.

Happy Chanukah from Micky

Micky made us homemade doughnuts for Chanukah... the dough itself wasn't too difficult but figuring out the temperature of the oil proved to be an obstacle of it's own. In the end they came out beautifully and I may have eaten one too many. Some were filled with Crème Patisserie and others just dusted with homemade icing sugar... my favourite!

French Toast

French Toast isn't the most difficult of dishes to make, but my goodness does Micky make good French Toast! It started off one weekend when I first arrived and kind of became our thing we do on Saturday mornings. The usual mixture of eggs and milk is used with the addition of some cinnamon and his secret ingredient - cottage cheese. I am not sure whether its the cottage that is mixed into the mixture or the fact that it's made with love... or both... but I have never had anything as delicious as these soft, melt-in-your-mouth with a slight cheese blintzer taste, pieces of French Toast that make me want to eat more than I should. I do add a little more cinnamon and sugar, but not before eating one piece plain. I don't think my hips will, but I will most certainly miss this!