|The worst day ever... And cookies|

   

So I possibly has the worst day ever today. Let me run your through it. 

It started off with me waking up in a pretty terrible mood, just one of those days. Don't ask, I don't know why. That morning I had to go to the police station to report an attempted break in. That only took, what, 3 hours and came with extremely helpful policemen... Not. Huge waste of time! Then, I decided to try get some Christmas shopping done. Well... That was an epic fail. For those of you in South Africa, you'll know all about load-shedding. If you don't, basically it's when the electricity company turn off the electricity in an entire area for two hours. So I'm inside the mall and Bam! No lights. Grreeaat! So I ended up getting all of diddly squat for my family. After my fail of a shopping experience, I decided to go to campus to get my end of year results and what do I find? The classroom my results are in, is locked. At this point in the day I was so fed up, I even tried to pick the lock with my hair pin (don't worry UCT, I didn't manage to pry it open, despite my best efforts) So utterly defeated I decide I need to bake something, that will cheer me up right? So off home I go. Now my dad loves vanilla cupcakes, and I was going home to Durban to see my family the next day (I live in Cape Town, by the way). So I whipped up the batter and threw them into the oven, only to have the electricity go off again. Damn Eskom and load shedding for ruining my perfect batch of cupcakes. 

So, after two hours of no electricity, a sunken mess of half baked cupcake batter and possible the worst day, the only way to salvage it was to bake a batch of sugar cookies. Complete with royal icing and sprinkles. And damn were they yum. 4-o-clock in the morning and my cookies complete (with no hiccups this time), bags packed and flights home booked, I was completely ready to hit the sack and welcome a new day! Hopefully one that was not so awful. 

Seeing my family the next day after so many months away more than made up for my previous day. And seeing them enjoy my cookies (almost too pretty to eat) was well worth the late night. I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as we did!

Sugar Cookies with royal icing

Sugar Cookies

• 226 grams unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp salt
• t tsp pure vanilla extract

How To:

Cream the butter until creamy and then add the sugar and beat until smooth. Then add the vanilla extract and incorporate. Gently add the flour, cornstarch and salt to the butter and just bring together to form a dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, cover in cling film and let it chill in the fridge for about an hour.

Pre-heat your oven to 177 degrees Celsius and line your baking sheets. Flour your surface lightly and roll out your dough. Cut out your shapes and put them on your trays. Lightly flour your cookie cutter to prevent the dough sticking to it. Place the cut cookies on the trays back in the fridge to firm up so they hold their shape in the oven. Once firm (about 15minutes) bake for 8-10 minutes. To ensure an evenly baked biscuit, make sure when you roll out the dough that it is the same thickness throughout. 

I glazed my cookies, once cooled, with some simple royal icing.

mmm, yum!

|Carrot Cake with Lavender Cottage Cheese Icing|

I am a student, and as a result I don't get to read a lot during the year besides from my biochemistry and human physiology textbooks, which - surprisingly - aren't exactly enthralling. I have therefore taken a good two weeks since I finished my last exams to lock myself in my room and catch up on some well deserved me time and a good book. Great. Only, not so great. 

Every single book I read these passed two weeks - 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn, 'Me before You' by Jojo Moyes and the 'Divergent' Trilogy by Veronica Roth - have left me feeling rather unsatisfied with life. I think if you've read any of these books, you'll understand what I mean when I say that they are all, in their own right, tragic love stories, and its left me feeling pretty hopeless about my prospects. To be fair to myself, I have been cooped up in my room for two weeks, so maybe all I need is to get out and socialise a bit. Cabin fever is a real thing. 

"...sometimes life really sucks," she says. "But you know what I'm holding on for?"
I raise my eyebrows.
She raises hers, too, mimicking me.
"The moments that don't suck," she says. "The trick is to notice them when they come around.”

-Allegiant by Veronica Roth

I could, also, just eat a slice of this super moist and delicious carrot cake, it definitely counts as one of those moments that won't 'suck'. A slice of carrot cake and a good book. Kidding. I think I've had enough reading to last me for a while now. 

But, lets talk about this carrot cake. Seriously, this is the type of cake you can eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, its that good. I made it for a friend who said he loved carrot cake, I told him mine could beat the best carrot cake he'd ever eaten. I may have built it up just a little. But he came back to me saying that it was so light and not stodgy like a carrot cake can so often be. Said it was one of the best he'd had. Also, as the frosting is made from smooth cottage cheese, its a lot lighter than if it had been made with cream cheese. (Don't get me wrong though, you can never go wrong with a good cream cheese frosting)

Carrot Cake with Lavender Cottage Cheese Icing

cake:

• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs (room temperature)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups plain flour
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 100g chunky chopped walnuts
• 100g chunky chopped pecans
• 550g grated carrots
• 1/2 cup crushed pineapple

frosting:

• 500g smooth cottage cheese
• approximately 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 50g unsalted butter
• pure lavender extract to taste

how to:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and butter and flour 2 round cake tins. 

Combine the sugar, oil and eggs in bowl and mix until a pale yellow. Add in the vanilla and combine. 

In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Then slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until incorperated. Once it is just combined, add the chopped nuts, carrot and pineapple and fold it until homogenous. 

Divide the batter between the cake tins and bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The cakes will be a rich golden brown colour. Turn the cakes out and allow to cool on a wire rack.

In the mean time, make the icing. Beat the butter and cottage cheese together until light, then sift in the confectioners sugar and lavender extract and combine. I put it in the fridge at this stage while the cakes cooled so it could set slightly. Assemble the cakes once cooled and voila. 

|Beginning|

So, here I am at last. 

|This is me, celebrating my entry into the cyber food-sphere, with some decadent chocolate ice cream. Yum|

Finally took the time to sit down and start this thing. I mean, its only taken, what... a year? 

Im not a trained pastry chef, or trained in anything chef-y. Im a self-taught, experimental home-cook, cooking and baking mostly so that I can eat what I make, but also because it brings me so much joy to see family and friends eat and enjoy my food. 

As the year draws to a close, I look at this as a sort of head start on a new-years resolution, not that I have ever kept one of those for longer than a week. This is generally because they normally sound something along the lines of; "I want to lose 5kgs", "I want to stay fit this year", "Sugary treats kept to one a week, not one multiple times a day".

 I love food, those were ridiculously unrealistic for me. 

But this one, Im determined to keep. I spend most of my time browsing food blogs and cook books, the rest on Pinterest, pining after all the ridiculously good looking food on show, so it only makes sense to me that I start my own. 

So, it took me a while to decide what I should post first. Not really sure why this was the one I decided on, probably cause it was gone within a few hours. Me and my sister, we polished this bad boy off. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was easily done as it isn't super rich, but truly packs a flavour punch. And it was her birthday, so she can do what she wants right? 

Let us eat cake. 

Lemon Poppyseed Bundt Cake with a Lemon Yoghurt Glaze

cake:

• 80g unsalted butter
• 200g granulated sugar (1 cup)
• zest of 2 lemons
• 2-3 tbsp poppy seeds (really as many as you'd like)
• 165g low fat milk (2/3 cup)
• 235g plain flour (2 cups)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 egg whites

lemon syrup:

• 50g granulated sugar (1/4 cup)
• 100g water (just a little more than 1/3 cup)
• zest and juice of 1 lemon

glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1tbsp plain yoghurt
• lemon juice to taste

how to:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and butter and flour a bundt pan. Cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest together. In a slow and steady stream, add the milk. 

In a separate bowl sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Gradually fold it into the butter mixture. Then fold in the poppy seeds. 

In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and then gently fold them in. Once combined, pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pan.

While the cake is baking make the syrup: add all the ingredients to a pan and simmer over a medium heat until the mixture has reduced by half. While the cake is cooling, poke some holes in it and pour the syrup over.

To make the glaze, just combine the ingredients together and pour over the cake. Simple.