Becky Brown, best in town

It is because I love cooking and baking,
because so many friends/family members have encouraged my efforts,
because it's nice to have an outlet for creativity,
and because it just seemed like it would be fun...

that Becky Brown is here!

If you're in Cape Town and would like delicious home-baked goodies made to order, just ask Becky Brown. Call 076-588-9530, email becky.brown.baking@gmail.com, or visit beckybrown.moonfruit.com.

birthday party

Our friends Trevor and Jahro have been in Cape Town for the last ten days. You might remember them from the post that went up after we visited them in Canada before our move. Jahro turned three on Tuesday, so we decided to make full use of the election day holiday and throw him a birthday bash. The birthday boy has a beloved hedgehog toy (aptly named Hedgie) so I decided to make him a Hedgie cake.

Hegdie was a delicious almond cake with chocolate frosting and almond sliver spines. Jahro rocked up in a clown suit ready to party with Hedgie.

"Happy birthday" was sung, a wish was made, candles were blown out.

Then it was chow time. Jahro wanted the head. Later he came back to eat Hedgie's bum.

I think he liked it. 

For his birthday, Brendan and I gave Jahro a real South African vuvuzela. People who don't have kids can do such things and vaguely get away with it. We'll see if Trevor and Dale are still on speaking terms with us in a month. 

Happy Birthday Jahro!

local flavor

The word on the street is that 2011 is the year of the pie. Music to my pie-loving ears. If you don't believe me, read this or this or this. In my opinion, the secret to great pie is in the crust. I don't use shortening. It weirds me out, and there is no need to be weirded out when you can make a supremely delicious crust using good old fashioned butter. Mmmm butter. My recipe is very easy and very tasty...two of my favorite things.

Pie crust
practically identical to the recipe featured on Smitten Kitchen
makes 2 pie crusts (or a top and bottom if you are making a topped pie)

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks cold butter (or 226 grams if you live in a place where butter doesn't come in either sticks or tablespoons- dang metric system)
1/2 cup water with ice cubes in it

Mix all your dry stuff together in a large bowl. Cut your butter into little pieces and add them to the flour mixture. Use your hands to break the butter apart, really mixing it in with the flour, and ensuring that the butter gets evenly distributed. After a couple of minutes of this you should have pea-sized pieces and the contents of your bowl should look sort of crumbly. This is good. Next add a couple tablespoons of the icy water, and continue to mix the dough with your hands. Continue to knead, adding water slowly if needed, until it all comes together into a big non-sticky ball. Too sticky? Add a touch of flour. Lovely. Now split that ball in two, flatten into disks, wrap them in cling wrap, and chill it in the fridge for at least an hour. The dough will keep in the fridge for about a week, and longer if you freeze it. Voila. Easy as pie.

So what did I do with my pie crust this weekend? I made a nectarine and passion fruit pie with a lattice top. I chopped about 10 nectarines from the Kirstenbosch market and mixed that with a tin of passion fruit, some cinnamon, ginger, lemon juice, and flour. Baked at 350 for about an hour. Scrumptious.


In other food news, I had some litchi sorbet yesterday at the Italian ice cream shop on Hout Bay main road. Yum.


And this sign gave me the giggles at the Imhoff farm stall in Kommetjie.


My guess is that it's the chocolate chips that make those cookies American style...you can't get chocolate chips here to save your life. I've already mentally allocated space in my suitcase for a bag of Nestle's Tollhouse chips when I return from the States in July.

strawberry rhubarb compote

It is reaching the end of rhubarb season for another year, so we've been enjoying it while we still can. Earlier in the week I made a batch of chocolate rhubarb cookies (although the end result was a bit of a cake-y cookie). They turned out quite good (alterations: dial back the sugar by at least 1/4 cup and add extra 'barb), and I brought the lot of them into the office for the ladies to enjoy. They went fast.

Two days ago, upon realizing that the remnants of our four pound box of strawberries was going to spoil if we didn't eat them ASAP, we had strawberry rhubarb tart. The compote- which was the topping- was easy, really delicious, and free of refined sugar (which means Brendan will eat it).

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote
roughly 3 cups strawberries, halved, and quartered if necessary to get them into a vaguely uniform size
roughly 4 cups rhubarb, peeled where necessary to remove the "strings", and diced to about 3/4"
honey
zest of half a lemon
lemon juice
1/2 a vanilla bean

Put most of the fruit (keep a handful of strawbs aside for later) and veg (rhubarb is a vegetable!) into a heavy bottomed saucepan. Add just a dash of water, and give a really generous drizzle of honey all over it. Let this sit a couple minutes so the natural juices start to come out. In the mean time, halve the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds out and put them in the pot, and toss the bean in too for good measure and flavor. Add in the zest, and only half the juice from your lemon half. Cook on medium-high heat for about 10 mins, stirring regularly. Taste it- is it too tart? Add more honey. Once the rhubarb and strawberries have started to break down, turn the heat lower and simmer for another few minutes. The mixture should be thickening. If it needs help, mix some of the fruit juice with corn starch or flour. Stir it until very smooth, then add back to the pot. That should do the trick. Once it looks and tastes right, discard the vanilla bean, stir in those extra strawberries for a bit of texture, and let it cool to room temp.

From here you can use pie dough or puff pastry to make a tart (just don't go getting involved in another project and forget your tart and end up with well done edges like I did), put it on yogurt or ice cream (it tastes heavenly with coconut ice cream), or just eat it right out of the pot because it is so darn good.

the sweetest place on earth

As mentioned in the previous post, last weekend included an impromptu trip to Hershey Park or, as they call it, "The Sweetest Place on Earth." To give you an idea of the choco-centrism of the place, come join me for a highlights tour.

You know you have arrived in Hershey when the street lights are shaped like kisses. The street names are also things like "Cocoa Avenue" and "Chocolate Street."

We stayed at the Hershey Lodge, which favored a brown color palette. 

The linens were printed with kisses.

The wallpaper was printed with kisses.

And when you wash your hair you get a sugar high because you are using these. 

Oh yeah, and there's cocoa in your room (but surprisingly no chocolates on your pillow!).

The Park itself was fun. We rode two incredibly hectic roller coasters. The first one rockets you off with g-force and proceeds to send you vertically up and then down.

You then continue through a series of loops and twists, and see your life flash before your eyes. Good times. But because the 47 seconds you are on this ride weren't traumatizing enough, we immediately went on another roller coaster. It looked relatively tame- some loops, some turns, but nothing major. Uhhh, not so. After you ride this one facing forward, they then run you through it in reverse. So those loops? Yes, you go upside through them back first. It's very spooky to be going that fast and not be able to see where you are going. Someone captured the insanity on You-Tube if you care to watch (on an empty stomach):

Sidewinder Roller Coaster

As Brendan had to struggle to keep his lunch down after these, we played it safe for the rest of the day. We enjoyed the people dressed up as candy bars and the decorations that looked like people dressed up as candy bars.

And for a guy who doesn't like chocolate he certainly enjoyed himself and made some classic American memories.