Homemade Vanilla Extract

Every man and his dog has had a go at making their own vanilla extract....so I figured that it was time I did too!  Besides, I hunted and hunted and hunted for the right bottles, the right vanilla and the right vodka - all at a relatively decent price.  Maybe you want that info too?

The pics are blurry, I am still having real trouble getting my not so new camera to agree with me.  Sorry; you will get over it I am sure.

I really thought that it would be a *cheap* project.  Not so much!  The ingredients were each quite expensive.  But, it is worth it - I now have a gazillion (21 really) ready made presents just sitting and waiting for unsuspecting recipients.

It is simple.  All you do is cut the bean in 2, then slit each half in half length ways so that all the little beans are exposed.  Keep one end of the pod halves attached.  Put your sliced and slit beans in bottles and cover the beans with vodka.  I used 2 pods per bottle.

I believe that it is also possible to make extract with other hard liquor - if you have a huge stash look into using it, the internet is your friend.  The beans need to be kept covered with the vodka, otherwise they will dry out.  They also say that the beans need to soak for something like 6 weeks before using the extract.  The longer they soak the better it gets.

We sloshed some vanilla into our weekend latte - it was yummy, except that we could taste the vodka (ick!).  I am waiting for some of the bottles to mature a little more, then I am going to move the beans around so that I have more beans in a bottle - to get a stronger vanilla extract.

About the stickers - there are so many free printables online for these.  I ended up downloading a ready made sticker page, then, never happy with things as they are, decided I needed to add to it.  So, my stickers have a recipe for Vanilla Biscuits on one side and instructions on the other.  If you would like a copy, drop me a note and I will e-mail you the sheet.

Now...you really want to know about my supplies, don't you?  Here we go then:

8oz/227ml sauce bottles - £17 for 39 bottles

Vanilla pods - £16.50 for 50 premium Madagascan pods

Humungous 1.5l bottles of vodka from Costco - can't remember how much they were, but they were a little bit cheaper than elsewhere.  Cheap, cheap vodka is just fine.

If you have made vanilla extract, let me know what worked for you.  I'd love to hear.

Macadamia Chocolate Spread {Recipe}

My mother made me a recipe book for my birthday a few years ago.  The recipes are all cuttings from various magazines....almost all from the 1980's-1990's.  I guess that she had a monster pile of magazines that she wanted to ditch and decided to chop them into shreds before doing so.  I won't complain - there are some delicious recipes in there!

One of the recipes is for this chocolate spread, I don't know what magazine it has come from.  It is sooooooo goooood, so I feel the need to share.  

125g macadamia nuts, chopped finely

250g milk chocolate, finely chopped or grated

125g unsalted butter, softened

Combine the butter and chocolate to form a smooth paste.

Add the nuts and beat until smooth and evenly combined.

Store in jars in the fridge, but serve at room temperature or slightly warmed up.

I spooned dollops of mix into 2 and a half dijon mustard sized jars.  The half a jar means that we get to keep a little as the other 2 jars are [very] late Christmas gifts.

I also sterilised my jars and lids in the oven, am not entirely sure that is necessary - I figured it wouldn't do any harm to be on the safe side.

Once your jars are filled and cooled, have fun decorating them.  I just cut fabric circles and tied them onto the lids.

Spread the chocolate on to sandwiches, toast, biscuits, cakes....you get the idea.  

These little jars of healthy chocolate - hey! they have a nuts and milk in them...doesn't that makes them healthy!?  The little jars would make a lovely Easter present too.

Crustless Milk Tart {Recipe}

When I was a kid Mom used to buy full cream, lightly pasteurised milk from a local diary farm - like 15 litres of milk in a gigantic yellow bucket once a week!  [One time, when the bucket lid wasn't properly closed, milk spilt all over our car boot - yucky sour milk stank out the car for WEEKS!]  It had lovely cream on the top which my dad skimmed off and turned into butter - he had one of those fancy pants butter churners.

Sometimes, when there was milk left over at the end of the week Mom would make some delicious milk tart.  This is the same recipe that I have been eating since forever...    

The more traditional milk tart has a pastry crust.  This recipe is just so perfect, that I have never been bothered to figure out a crusty version.

4 cups milk

2 tbsp margarine or butter

1 cup flour

pinch of salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3 eggs, separated

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

cinnamon to sprinkle over

* Melt the butter, then beat in the egg yolks and sugar.

* Add the dry ingredients, milk and vanilla to the egg mixture.

* Stiffly beat the egg whites, then fold into the mixture blending well.

* Pour into a 35x20cm (can do a bit bigger too) dish.

* Sprinkle cinnamon over (I use LOTS)

* Bake at 160 deg C for around 45-60 mins.

You may need to bake the tart for longer.  Mine is often in for longer than an hour.  Keep baking until the milk tart is no longer wobbly.  I usually wait for the surface to crack up a bit - it is normally ready to eat at this point.  Also - it gets firmer the cooler it gets.  Ours is usually half eaten by the time it is cooled.  It is just too yummy to wait until is is cool!!  It will keep in the fridge for a few days - and is just as delicious cold.

Yum!  Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum, YUM!

I'd love to hear what you think about this recipe - so please give it a go and let me know if you enjoyed it or not.

No Cupcakes Left

If you happen to have visited my Facebook this week you would have seen Chloe hanging off of the oven watching cupcakes bake.  Or, maybe she was just gawping at herself and slobbering on the mirrored glass?  Either way, it was cute.

We decorated the cupcakes with a lovely, yummy, light and fluffy chocolate buttercream icing and Ava sprinkled colourful flowers, spots and miniature smarties generously all over them.  YUM!

But...now....the cupcakes are all finished :(

I am supposed to be on a bit of a diet - as in cutting back on the naughty stuff, so no baking cupcakes again any time soon......{melodramatic} sigh........

Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream {Recipe}

In the hope of some more sunshine making an appearance...we made some strawberry ice cream.

All you need are some frozen strawberries, a little cream and a few spoonfuls of icing sugar.  I have to confess that it isn't my recipe.  You can find that over here.  But, it was super easy and quick to make.

To blend the ingredients I used our Braun hand blender - the hand held plunger, rather than the whizzy container.  I am not entirely convinced that it was man enough for the job as our ice cream was not as smooth as we would have liked.  Maybe I froze the strawberries for too long?  I don't know, but it was delicious!

Our ice cream looks a little melted, that is because I kept whizzing it to try and get it smoother.  So, don't over-whizz yours, unless you like melted ice cream.

Do you think that this idea would work for mango or banana or some other fruity ice cream?

Oh Crumpets! {Recipe}

Oh rats!  Oh crumpets!  Oh bother!  Oh nuts!  It sucks....I am back at work.  As of last week actually.  Just one day last week, what with bank holidays and all.

It's good to be back.  Kind of.  The upside is not being bugged 53,142 times during the day about everything and anything...from the ladybird on the window to the snot that needs wiping.  Being able to go to the loo with out an audience is a novelty.  Going to the loo with out worrying that one munch-kin might maim a dog, or fling herself off the couch/bean bag is quite nice too.  I am quite enjoying my lunch for one too.

Beeeg downsides along the lines of separation anxiety - for me (!) and the kid-lettes, especially Chloe; the hour long journey each way; the glum train faces; the ridiculous cost of my train journey.  I mean, for my 20 minutes of standing pleasure I have to cough up £5.90 each way!  Just totally nuts.  90p more than it was a year ago.  Forking over the bulk of my salary to pay someone else to look after the little flowers is probably the absolute biggest downside.

Anyhooo...here is a crumpety recipe for you.  I like to make these at the weekend for breakfast.  Sometimes I halve the recipe, sometimes I make a full batch.  With the girls eating as much as they do at the minute, I made a full batch yesterday and every. single. last. one. was devoured.

These crumpets are what I would imagine American Pancakes are like - thick and fluffy.  Not the British crumpet, which I have only ever had bought from the shop...which were thick and rubbery and holey.

So, here is the recipe.....the full batch recipe....

Whisk together:
2 cups of flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup milk (approx 440ml)
1/4 cup melted margarine (approx 60ml)

I pour my whisked mixture into a big measuring jug so that I can then just pour the mixture into the frying pan.  Otherwise, a soup ladle works pretty darn well too.

The mixture has the consistency of a thick-ish cream.  For some reason my batter is sometimes runnier than other times.  If the crumpets are looking a bit thin, I add a little more flour.

Pour some batter on to your hot frying pan or griddle.  Wait for the bubbles and flip it over until both sides are golden brown.

Keep them warm wrapped up in a pretty tea towel.

Get creative with your shapes!

Our favourite toppings are syrup or marmite (YUM!).  What are your favourite crumpet toppings?

Easy Cheesy Mielie Bread {Recipe} & A Little Outing

We went for a little walk around Harpenden at the weekend.  It isn't too far from home and we hadn't been there before.  It was a lovely outing, especially as the sun made an appearance.

 So much beautiful green space.

 Loads of flags and bunting flying in the breeze.

 A lovely Continental feel - awnings, colourful paintwork...

 A fun shop front display.

 More green space and bunting - Ava was quite beside herself with all the "flags" (bunting).

 Pavement jumping fun with Flower Daddy.

And yet more green space!  With humongous trees!

The garlicky aroma wafting in this vicinity was almost too much for us. 

Love those pretty terraced cottages.

Pretty leaf colours.

At the last minute before we left home I decided that we needed some yummy mielie bread.  To take with for all of us to snack on.  This 'bread' isn't really 'bread' - more like a savoury loaf or cake.  I make this for braai's...and we have a seriously big IOU outstanding with a certain friend - who I like to thank for help (moving fridges, assembling crazy heavy solid oak dining table, moving house, etc, etc, etc) by 'paying' with mielie bread.

A few pertinent South African-ism's...just in case you were confused about anything...

Mielie = corn
braai = bbq

I warn you, this bread is Seriously More-ish!!  I always make sure that we have at least one can of creamed sweetcorn in our cupboard.  When we need this bread, we NEED this bread.

If you are on food.com, you can also find the recipe here: http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-cheesy-mielie-bread-100512.  I have since made a few minor modifications.

Easy Cheesy Mielie Bread

480g self raising flour (or +/- 3tsp baking powder in 480g flour)

salt
50ml sugar
30ml cooking oil
2 eggs
200ml milk
1 (410g) can cream-style sweet corn
100g strong cheese, grated (we like red leicester and a fair bit more than 100g!)
Grated or chopped onion
Chopped parsley (I don't always add this, but either dry or fresh will do)

* Mix flour, salt & sugar
* Beat oil, eggs & milk
* Add to the flour mixture
* Add the sweet corn, half the cheese and half the onion and half the parsley, mix and place in well greased circular pot, or loaf tin, or giant muffin tins
* Sprinkle remaining cheese, onion and parsley over
* Bake at 180°C for 45-60mins - until a skewer looks dry
* Spread with butter and enjoy

We can highly recommend a slathering of apricot jam on the warm bread!

Ava's 3rd Birthday

It was Ava's 3rd birthday yesterday.  I can't believe that she is no longer a toddler...I guess that it has really been a while since she was an 'official' toddler.  She recently discovered skirts and the last few days has demanded to wear one - day time AND night time!  She only had one skirt that I made her a few weeks ago, which she had been refusing to wear.  Then...BAM..all of a sudden she is refusing to take it off!?

Anyhow, for her birthday I made her a little circle skirt out of some gorgeous cotton fabric that a kind lady gave to me.

Twirling demonstration...we still need to work on getting the skirt twirling properly!  We also need to work harder on getting those fingers out her mouth more permanently...

Here we are again, this time modelling her new shoes, which conveniently arrived in the post on her birthday, and eating rainbow birthday cake.

Just to confirm....she did in fact sleep in the new skirt last night.  I had to peel it off her this morning to get it in the wash basket.

Her birthday cake was rainbow cupcakes.  I was a bit over enthusiastic about the amount of food colouring needed!  I mixed up 5 different colours, and put a dollop of each into the cupcake cases.  The recipe is my favourite - Mums Beat & Bake Cake.

They were iced with a lovely light (and pink) buttercream icing piped on with a round nozzle and then decorated with Dr Oetker sprinkles.

Candles were lit {again and again and again}. Happy Birthday was sung {again and again and again}.

Cake was eaten and enjoyed.  Tongues (and no doubt tummies) were stained.

Cupcake wrappers were compared and admired....well, by me at least!

I made her one other present - memory coins.  I bought the coins from here and the images were inspired by these.  I still want to add colour to them, my coloured markers only arrived in the post today, and seal them with beeswax and olive oil.  Will do a big reveal when they are properly finished.  So far, she has enjoyed the memory game...and has invented her own tiddly-winks game with them too!

It was a good day and a really, really busy day yesterday - even although it poured, Really Poured!  By 5pm she was completely wiped out.  I still can't believe that our precious, adorable, clever little girl is 3 already....

...now I just have to come to terms with baby Chloe turning 1 next month - when she will soon become a toddler...

Very Pink Cupcakes AKA Beat and Bake Cake

Being a very girly house that this is (poor Flower Daddy - 2 girl dogs, 2 daughters and a wife to make him suffer), we rather like pink cupcakes.  Pink cake AND pink icing!  Sometimes, just sometimes, we add blue sprinkles to the topping - for a bit of added manliness.  He doesn't complain.  Just as well, or us girls would eat the lot.

These ones are quite a lot Pinker than our usual pink (see the blue sprinkles?)...the photo is pretty rubbish too.  This icing was icing sugar, fresh lime juice, pink gel food colouring and a little water to make the icing easier to spread.

These are more typical of our usual pink cupcakes.  Pink butter cream icing with pink sponge hiding underneath.  Not a crazy glow in the dark sort of pink, more of a respectable and edible sort of pink.  I'll have to take a photo of the sponge next time we bake them.

Much concentration and enjoyment goes into the decoration and eating of them.

The recipe that I like is actually my moms Beat and Bake cake recipe.  When we were kids she would double it and make a massive tray bake cake.  I remember the icing being either chocolate or granadilla flavoured butter cream icing.  Yum!

It makes a lovely flat topped cupcake.  If you fill the cupcake cases 1/2 way, you can easily spread a runny icing on top without losing it all overboard.  Fill the cases about 3/4's for a piped icing finish.

Enough yabbering, here is the recipe:

125g soft margarine, not melted

200ml sugar

300ml flour

2 tsp baking powder

125ml milk

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence
a few drops food colouring

Heat your oven to 180 deg C.

Chuck all the ingredients into a bowl - I use my Kenwood electric mixer - and beat slowly until everything is nicely combined (about 3mins).

Pour into your cupcake cases or baking tin and bake until golden brown ~ cupcakes: approx 12mins ~ cake: approx 25mins