My Collection
I have my own eclectic mix of recipes, again gathered from I know not where.
Cock-eyed Chocolate Cake
Cheesy Bake
Alex's Cup Cakes
Biltong 1
Biltong 2
Alex's Cup Cakes
Cock-eyed Chocolate Cake
(This is a famous recipe, I believe, but I haven't the faintest idea who invented it. I saw it in a newspaper years ago, meant to cut it out, didn't, and finally bumped into the cake itself in the home of a friend of mine. It was dark, rich, moist, and chocolatey, and she said it took no more than five minutes to mix it up. So I tried it, and oddly enough, mine, too, was dark, rich, moist, and chocolatey. My own timing was five and a half minutes, but that includes hunting for the vinegar)
1½ cups sifted flour 6 oz ½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cocoa 5 tablespoons cooking oil
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 1 tablespoon vinegar
1 cup (8 oz) sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup (½ pt) cold water
Put your sifted flour back in the sifter,
Add to it the cocoa, soda, sugar, and salt,
Sift this right into a greased square cake tin, about 9 x 9 x 2 inches.
Now make three grooves, or holes, in this dry mixture.
Into one, pour the oil;
Into the next, the vinegar;
Into the next, the vanilla.
Now pour the cold water over it all.
You'll feel like you're making mud pies now, but beat it with a spoon until it's nearly smooth and you can't see the flour.
Bake it at 350ºF for half an hour.
Cheesy Bake
This is somewhat similar to Durban's "Bunny Chow", but cheesier and less meaty - but then, you can adjust the ingrediants as you see fit !
1 crusty loaf of bread, round or oval
1 packet chopped ham
1/2 lb chopped bacon (uncooked)
1 lb cheddar cheese, grated (mature or mild)
Green onion (suit your own taste)
8 oz. sour cream
8 oz. cream cheese
4 oz. chopped green chilies
Salt, pepper, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste to taste
Mix the other ingredients together then put into the hollowed-out bread loaf. Bake at 350 degrees uncovered for one hour. Serve with the left-over bread or crisps.
Alex's Cup Cakes
Ingredients (for the cakes):-
Makes abouts 20-22 cup cakes,
or one 8" cake.
225g butter
225g caster sugar (golden or white, whatever you prefer - I prefer golden in vanilla sponge and white in lemon)
4 eggs
225g self raising flour
5ml vanilla or lemon essence
10ml glycerine (makes the cakes nice and moist)
It is important that all ingredients are at room temperature, specially the eggs.
Method:-
Cream the butter and the caster sugar with the essence until pale and fluffy (the mix, not you). Then add the eggs one by one, sometimes it helps to add a little bit of the flour to prevent curdling. Then add the glycerine - the mixture often curdles at this stage, but don't worry about it - it's only cup cakes! Then fold in the sifted flour and put the mix into cup cake cases. Use approx 40g per case, but for personal use you can be a bit more generous. Then bake in the fan oven at 170C degrees for 17 minutes. That's all! No hidden extras!
Icing:-
For the buttercream use a 3 to 1 mix of icing sugar (sifted) to butter (at room temperature) - e.g. 225g icing sugar, 75g butter, 5ml of vanilla or lemon essence and a dash of milk (straight from the fridge, that doesn't matter) to make it nice and smooth - you'll know when the consistency is right, depends on what you want to do with it. For piping it needs to be quite stiff, for spreading it helps if it's a bit softer, so adjust it with milk right at the end.
Or for a Cake rather than cupcakes:-
It's a basic Madeira cake recipe for an 8-inch cake tin. That needs to bake for 75 minutes at 160 degrees C in the fan oven and substitute the self raising flour for plain flour plus 5 ml of baking powder.
Biltong 1
Beef (Preferably Silverside, or the cheapest roast in supermarket)
Rock Salt,
Coarse Ground Black Pepper,
Coarse Ground Coriander,
Vinegar (preferably Apple-Cider vinegar).
All spice or spices of your choice.
Cut beef into half-inch thick strips; make sure it's cut with the grain. Liberally sprinkle rock-salt on each side of the pieces of meat and let them stand for half an hour in a dish. The longer you let it stand the saltier it will become.
While waiting, mix ground pepper, ground coriander and all spice in a Pyrex dish.
After the half hour, scrape off all the excess salt with a knife (don't soak it in water!). Then put some vinegar - preferably apple-cider vinegar, but any vinegar will do - in a bowl and dip the strips of meat in the vinegar for a second or so - just so that the meat is covered in the vinegar and it helps to wash off extra salt. Hold the biltong up so that the excess vinegar drips off.
Roll the meat in the spices.
Once you have done this, the meat is ready to hang to dry. There are several methods of drying. We use the home-made 'Biltong Box'. This is basically a sealed wooden box (you can use cardboard if you like) with holes in it and a 100w lightbulb inside. Just hang the meat at the top of the box, and leave the light bulb on at the bottom, resting on a wire frame to prevent the box from scorching or catching fire. The heat from the light bulb helps dry the meat (even in humid weather) in about 2-4 days. Remember, the box must be closed on all 6 sides except for a few holes (slits) on top and bottom on two sides. The whole theory behind this method is that hot dry air rises thus drying the biltong. The holes are quite important as they promote good air circulation in the box. My wooden box has a front that slides down to close it off.
You'll know when the biltong is ready when it is quite hard, but still a bit moist inside. Of course, some people like it 'wet' and others like it 'dry'. It's all a matter of taste.
Variations on the above recipe:- add flavours like Worcestershire sauce, BBQ sauce, tabasco sauce, soy sauce, etc.. Just brush these sauces on after applying the vinegar, using a basting brush.
Biltong 2
2 kg of beef
150 ml red wine vinegar
50 ml Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons coriander seeds, coarsely ground
1 tablespoon black pepper, coarsely ground
500 g sea salt
150 g brown sugar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 Cut the beef into strips about 4cm x 1cm thick. Pack the meat into a smallish bowl, so that it fits tightly.
2 Add the vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Leave for 30 minutes.
3 Meanwhile, mix the coriander and pepper together in another bowl.
4 In a third bowl, mix the salt, sugar and bicarbonate of soda together.
5 Remove the meat from the marinade, but reserve the marinade for later use.
6 Add the beef to the bowl of spices, mixing it around until evenly coated. Save any spices that don't stick.
7 Bury the spiced beef in the salt and the sugar mixture and leave it for 3 hours.
8 Remove the beef from the brine and dip it back into the reserved vinegar marinade for another 5 minutes.
9 Remove the beef from the marinade and using the vinegar, wash all the salt off (don't skip this bit or the biltong will be unbearably salty).
10 Squeeze the beef to remove as much liquid as possible. Roll in the spices once more. The meat is now ready for hanging.
11 Hang in box and make sure that they hang freely without touching anything on the sides or bottom.
12 Leave the strips hanging for 2-5 days as you like it!
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