South Africa's Best Chocolate Cake

I think it's about time I share with you all the recipe for South Africa's Best Chocolate Cake. I know I've been bragging about this a little (I do deserve to though), and I've been promising the recipe for a while now. A wise person once said, no good story starts with a salad, and I couldn't agree more!

This story starts with my Gran. She found the Best Chocolate Cake Competition in the Sunday Times and insisted I enter, she even drove out to drop the article off at my house so I could get all the details. I literally left it to the last minute, after contemplating entering and thinking up ideas for my cake (the cakes had to be original), I entered in the last couple of days. Shortly after entering I got a phone call from Hillary Biller, food editor for Sunday Times, she called to tell me that out of hundreds of applicants I had been shortlisted to the final 6. We were to compete in a bake off at Sandton City Shopping Centre on 14 September 2013. I could hardly believe it!

So on the 13th of September the finalists met up with a few of the judges, we had drinks, followed by a wonderful dinner at The Walnut Grove in Sandton City, we spent the evening making new friends and chatting about baking and food in general, it was clear to see that everyone at the table had a passion for good food! After dinner we set off to take a sneak peek at our bake stations for the next day.

Then it was off to bed, we spent the night at the Sandton Sun in complete luxury, but with hearts racing and tummies full of butterflies it wasn't easy to fall asleep.

On the morning of the 14th we were up bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for the day ahead. After a scrumptious breakfast we headed down to the bake stations and so it began, checking that all our ingredients were there, sending people to get what was missing, preparing our stations, setting our ovens, measuring out ingredients, prepping our pans and doing interviews with the press, there were soooo many cameras!!

At 11 we were told to start, this was some serious Masterchef stuff going on! Everyone was hurrying around popping cakes in the ovens, the area filling with a strong sweet smell of chocolate, it was incredible. About 15 minutes after I put my cake in the oven I realised I had forgotten to set the timer, I was panicked but kept my cool and decided to just wait and see what happened. In the mean while I prepped the decorations and chatted to the TV people.

After a few hours we had all finished our cakes and had them on display, photo ready! Not one cake was similar to the next, brandy, granadilla, orange and strawberries had all found their way into the mix! After a miniature photo shoot the judges got a bit of each cake and had to judge them one by one, this was nerve wrecking, waiting to hear the outcome. Eventually the winners were announced and much to my delight and surprise I came out on top! It was the most amazing feeling!

Ok! I think I've kept you long enough, so here it is, the recipe for South Africa's Best Chocolate Cake:

Cake Ingredients:
2 cups flour
¾ cups cocoa powder
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups sugar
½ cup oil
1 cup boiling water
2 eggs

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease two 23cm round cake pans well using spray and cook.
2. In a large bowl, sift the dry ingredients together.
3. Add the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla essence and beat with an electric mixer for about two minutes. Add the boiling water and mix until combined. The batter will be quite runny, this makes the cake nice and moist.
4. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans and bake for 30-40 minutes.
5. To test if the cake is ready, insert a toothpick into the middle of the pan. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready. Slide a knife around the edge of each cake to loosen it from the pan, turn the pan over onto a metal rack to cool.
6. Let the cake cool completely before icing.

Chocolate Ganache Icing Ingredients:
200g of chocolate (dark or milk or a combination)
200ml double cream

Method:
1. Heat the chocolate and cream in a saucepan over low heat on the stove until the chocolate melts.
2. Remove the pan from the stove and whisk the mixture until smooth glossy and thickened..
3. Put aside to cool and until the icing is thick enough to spread over the cake.

Decorations:
+/- 40 flake chocolates cut to size Fresh strawberries (washed) for decorating
150ml cream
1.5m Pretty ribbon of choice

Method:
1. Beat the cream until thick and spread in between the 2 layers of the cake. You can add a pinch of sugar to help thicken the cream.
2. Ice the entire cake with chocolate ganache icing.
3. Thinly slice the strawberries and arrange them in fans ontop of the cake. They should be placed along the edge of the cake, leaving the centre of the cake open for decoration/candles, etc or for more strawberries.
4. Stick the flake fingers to the icing around the sides of the cake ensuring the entire cake is “surrounded” by flake fingers.
5. Once the entire cake is covered tie the ribbon around the cake.

Serve and enjoy!!

If you give my cake a try please do let me know what you think! I hope you enjoy baking it as much as I do, and I'm sure you're going to love it!

**Photo's taken by myself, Mariaan De Klerk and The Sunday Times

The Londoners Guilt Free Dairy Free "Ice Cream"

Although it's a little late, as promised yesterday..here it is!
A healthy, guilt-free, dairy-free "Ice Cream" that will not de-rail your diet but is oh-so delicious!

I first found this recipe over on The Londoner's blog (her pics are waaaay better than mine...but I'm working on it, so for now - please excuse me), Rose has tons of awesome recipes, I still have a few I want to try! I followed her instructions, it's easy peasy and only takes a few minutes - but I hate chopping hard things in the blender, it gives me the heebie jeebies!!
So the next time I made this "Ice Cream" I used the same concept but did it a little differently.

What you'll need:

4-5 Bananas - not too ripe
Flavouring of your choice

How you'll do it:
Peel your bananas and cut them into chunks. (Rose tells you to freeze your bananas after this step)

Toss them into your blender/food processor/smoothie maker or any other pulverising device.

Pulse the blender until your bananas are a nice smooth consistent mush.

Add your flavouring and blend well - I made chocolate and split it into 2 portions (one plain chocolate and the other with a teaspoon of peanut butter!) You can really use any flavouring you like. I plan on adding some fresh strawberries to my next batch! Oooh and maybe I'll make a coffee batch as well...just thought of that and it sounds good, I can imagine it would taste like a freezo, YUM!!

Decant the contents of your blender into a freezer bowl, and pop it into the freezer. Leave it in the freezer depending on how you like your ice cream, I freeze mine for a couple of hours because I like my ice cream to be firm. If you like it a little mushy and melted then an hour should be just fine.

I like eating mine straight out of the freezer bowl but you could always scoop and serve if you feel like sharing! You can top it with fresh berries, chopped nuts or anything else that tickles your fancy!

What I like about this recipe is the fact that its good for pretty much everyone, lactose intolerant, vegan, vegetarian, you name it! Also, the banana flavour doesn't really come through unless your bananas are over-ripe. I also think it's really  important to use a good quality flavouring because, well that's what ice cream is all about!

I like making a big batch of this ice cream (chocolate of course) and freezing it, that way whenever my sweet tooth is calling, I have a healthy but satisfying snack at my fingertips!

Chocolate Fondant with a South African Twist

Firstly I'd like to say "Bonjour!" to my newly acquired French readers! It's so exciting to see that my blog is reaching all corners of the globe!!

So, ever since my first trip to Mozambique in February 2013, I cannot get enough of chocolate fondant.
We went to a restaurant called Zambi and we had the most amazing prawns for dinner, followed by an even more delightful dessert...Chocolate Fondant.

Alot of people confuse chocolate fondant with your normal fondant that is used for decorating cakes. There's a major difference though, Chocolate Fondant is easily 1000 times more tasty than fondant icing, and blatantly put - it's your diet's worst nightmare!!

When I got back to Jo'burg I searched high and low for a restaurant that sold chocolate fondant that was as unashamedly chocolatey and downright delicious, as the one I had had in Mozambique, but NONE came close.

I had no choice but to find a recipe!! So I went digging through our recipe books at home, and as usual Mr Ramsay never disappoints!

If you're a chocolate lover like me, then you are highly likely to fall in love with this quick and easy recipe, if you're not then I think you need to pay a visit to your doctor because there's obviously something wrong with you!

Unfortunately we can't live off of these decadent little desserts, well, technically we could, but it isn't recommended! So, just as it goes with all the finer things in life, when trying to stay healthy, moderation is key!

This recipe yields 4 servings and is best served straight out the oven, otherwise your gooey chocolate centre disappears!

What you'll need:

4 7.5cm ramekins (you can also use muffin pans)
50g unsalted butter, plus extra, softened, to grease the ramekins
2 tsp cocoa powder, to dust
50g good-quality dark, bitter chocolate(minimum 70% cocoa solids), broken up in pieces - I use Lindt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
60g caster sugar
2 tbsp Amarula - this is a delicious South African liqueur (Any other liqueur such as Tia Maria/Frangelico will work)
50g plain flour, sifted
Vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche to serve

How you'll do it:

1. Heat the oven to 160°C/325°F/gas mark 3. Butter your ramekins and dust liberally with cocoa powder. Make sure you cover all the nooks and crannies so your fondants don't get stuck!Place in the fridge while you prepare the fondant mixture.

2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a small bowl set over a pan of hot water, or in the microwave. Take it off the heat and stir until smooth.
3. Using an electric whisk, beat the whole egg, the egg yolk and the sugar together in a separate bowl, until pale and thick, then fold in the chocolate mixture. Fold in the liqueur, followed by the flour.

4. Divide the chocolate mixture evenly among the ramekins and bake in the oven for 12 minutes.

5. Run a knife around the edge of the dishes and turn the chocolate fondants out onto warm plates. Alternatively you can leave them in the ramekins. (But then your amazing chocolate river will not ooze out the middle when you break it open for the first bite!)
6. Serve immediately, with a dollop of crème fraîche or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

And ENJOY your tiny taste of heaven!!

Kota Joe's

On Friday after work Riaan and I headed off for a bit of a different kind of dinner, something we had never done before...Roadhouse burgers...Destination - Kota Joe's in Edenvale!

Riaan has been talking about this place for a while now, he went there with a few colleagues for lunch a couple of weeks ago and has been dying to go back since.

We arrived, parked right in the front of our lane and ordered our meals from the huge menu displayed above the kitchen. The vibe was awesome, a retro feel with 80's music playing from huge speakers. As we sat in the car waiting for our food to arrive we chatted about our childhoods and how, when we were little we used to go to the roadhouse with our parents. It was a regular thing. Now days there are hardly any decent roadhouses around. So few, that this was actually the first time (in 8 and a half years) that Riaan and I had been to a roadhouse for a meal together.

While we waited for I food we reminisced about drive-in movies and playing on the jungle gyms in our pyjamas.
I don't think this is a purely South African thing, if you have watched the movie Grease (I have about 100 times at least), then you'll be familiar with this drive-in scene!

Anyways...after about 20 minutes of reminiscing and coming to the joint agreement that drive-in's and roadhouses's are something that EVERY child should experience in their lives, our food arrived. And boy did it look good!!

We had chocolate milkshakes (I cannot recommend the Kota Joe Chocolate Shake enough, it was the BEST shake I have had in ages! Hands down!)

I had a Cheese Burger and chips, it was big in size and big on taste!

Riaan had a Dagwood Kota, it was HUGE! So big that it filled both hands when he picked it up to eat it!
It's basically a dagwood and chips in a huge kota roll, it looked so tasty!

And so we sat in the car in near silence, the only sounds to be heard being the occasional "mmmm" and the slurping of milkshake.

We left with very full, but happy tummies and the promise that we would return to try out some of the other  more interesting items on the menu, and of course have another delicious chocolate milkshake!

If you know of any other awesome road-houses in and around JHB please let me know, would love to try them out!!!