Past Week's Highlights

  Top of the morning to ya!

   I'm not setting a very good record. It has been shamefully long since I have posted and I've already broken my resolution to be consistent. 

   It's been quite a busy week or so and we are currently honoured with the presence of friends who are expecting their first baby and daughter today or tomorrow. (I will make a post soon about them.) They say watch pots never boil... Try waiting for a baby!  Granted, it's only 16:15hrs and today is her due date; but I am impatient to see this gorgeous baby. (And I am positive that Sarah is even more ready to have her baby than I am.)  ... On top of that, I have added baby-holding competition because Grandma flew in from the states. I have a feeling I've been drastically bumped down in pecking order. ;-)

    In the meantime, I have preoccupied myself with different baking brainstorms. Besides their passion for meats and braais, South Africans (or at least Afrikaners) love their puddings and custards. They also eat a lot of cake. So, I decided to take it upon myself to come up with a vanilla cake with custard filling. So, I made a custard using a simple online recipe I found. (Tasted like glorified sweetened condensed milk.) Then I googled a good vanilla cake recipe. And finally, I just made some basic buttercream frosting with the usual butter, confectioner's sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt for good measure. 

   This is how it went:

     

And we have the cake batter...

One of the two layers. I could already tell from the first one (I had to bake them separately because I only had one pan) that these were going to be pretty dense. A lot of factors contributed to it's texture and weight. Trial and error. Trial and error. I just have to remind myself of Thomas Edison.  ;-) 

Morgan - my darling perfectionist sister - did the honours of leveling the cake.

Voila! The final product. Strawberry formation is a courtesy of my brother, Craig. (He wants full credit for that one and rightly so.)

Oven oat pancakes with Bulgarian plain yoghurt (!!!!), strawberry jam, and honey or syrup. This was one of our breakfasts. I had to do the recipe from memory because I couldn't find it online. It comes from the *amazing* cookbook Hearth and Home. Excellent quick, healthful breakfast. A winner for our family and guests.

 And my personal favorite breakfast: cinnamon pancakes with sauteed cinnamon-sugar apples. 

"Well... that's all I have to say about that."

Café de Manha

Love me some free-range brown eggs!!

Top of the morning to ya!

   I love breakfast! In fact, it is hands-down my absolute favorite meal of the day. I go to bed thinking about breakfast. I make breakfast thinking about breakfast. I... Is it just me or is anyone else having a dejavu?? I feel like I've said something like this before. Hmmm...

  So, our favourite thing... Well, ONE of our favourite things here are Woolworths' muffins. Muffins are über popular in South Africa. The only weird thing about muffin consumption here is that if you order it in a restaurant, they'll bring butter, jam... and shredded cheddar with it. I finally asked someone and they do actually put the cheese on their muffins when they eat it. Bran, chocolate chip, blueberry, ANY muffin. Interesting. 

   -That's almost as weird as Mo and I discovering that cheddar eaten with a coffee bean is really good! ... No, I'm serious. 

   Another thing about me is that I really really really like to start my day with eggs. My body craves that protein. I learned from someone that it actually helps kickstart your brain. 

   This was today's breakfast:

Scrambled egg batter? Dough?? Soup??? ... I wonder if there is a term out there.

Avos are really popular here, of course. Thank God because we Whitlock females could live off of them. And they are ridiculously cheap!

An egg is not an egg without Feta. So, I added that too.

And a delicious blueberry muffin...

Ok. I'll be honest. I had a blueberry muffin AND a chocolate chip chocolate muffin. :D

Mo's inferior breakfast of muesli (granola) mixed with peanut butter. But hey... the world wouldn't be interesting if we didn't have people like her! ;-) 

"Well... That's all I have to say about that!" 

Practice What You Pinterest

Trial run recipe for some chocolate chip cookies that got me salivating on Pinterest. They turned out ok considering that I didn't have everything I needed. However, I definitely have notes for next time.

Top of the morning to ya!

   Brand new blog and I am already slacking. This post was left in drafts, yesterday; but I'm kind of glad because I ended up changing it a bit. I want to be consistent but not boring... And when I returned to my original post, I realised it was a good thing I walked away for a few hours so I could look at it with fresh eyes. 

   The inspiration for this blog is really to help me keep track of the baking I do. So, I decided to share different trial-run recipes that I've worked on as we wait for all of our cooking supplies to arrive in our shipment.  

    Back in Houston, I was blessed with the opportunity to learn under a woman who opened her dream bakery. She named the shop after her mother who was also a great baker and her signature items were mostly her mom's recipes. If you ever land in Houston, I recommend that you visit MargieBeth's Bake Shop. 

   Thanks to that experience, I have a renewed passion for baking and am eager to adapt and perfect different recipes. I come from a semi-long line of bakers and my maternal grandfather actually went to culinary art school in Pittsburgh. (He was generous enough to give me all of his books from that experience.) My pap is an INCREDIBLE chef. He can make anything and it always tastes better than the original recipe. In fact, he is quite the renaissance man. My grandmother is one blessed woman! ;-)

   Recipes can be broad, endless, and sometimes overwhelming. I've decided to make my Pin-oholic self productive by practicing what I pin...

   

 I used chocolate "chips" and hazelnut milk chocolate bars for this recipe. The browned butter really made them look darker. 

     I began very simply with this recipe I pinned on my board 'Sobremesas'. Being a slight rebel at heart  (as far as wanting to add my own twist to anything creative), I have adopted what I heard a chef say: 

A true chef has at least one twist or secret ingredient that  they incorporate into their baking/cooking. 

   The lady I worked for in Houston once mentioned in conversation that her daughter had found some cookie recipe where you brown the butter before creaming it with the sugar. This definitely seemed like a novel idea and would perhaps make the dough even more rich. Graeme and I agreed after tasting the dough that it resembled a very mild rum flavour. Yum!

   To my dismay, I absent-mindedly did not take photos of the finished product. They looked pretty because I refrigerated the balls of dough for a day. However, I was not pleased with the texture. 

   

    Next time, eh? :-)

"Well... That's all I have to say about that."

  

 

Top of the Morning!

View on the way to a friend's farm.

    Oi!! My name is Caelyn. I've recently relocated with my family to South Africa for business. If you have never been to South Africa, I HIGHLY recommend it. I am American; but southern Africa, in general, is my heart's home. The saying holds true and I am living proof that Africa gets in your blood.  

   

 Incredible view from Kaapsehoot where we went to see the wild descendants of abandoned horses.

  However, most importantly I am the daughter of the Most High King, Yeshua the Messiah. The fact that He cleansed me of my unrighteousness and made me holy (set apart for His Glory, alone) is something that I take very personally.  - With His grace and mercy in mind, I am able to enjoy His creation and the gifts and resources He has allowed us to create with. 

Not to make you jealous or anything, but I just want to give you every angle. :-)

    

    I love any creative outlet (e.g. fashion, baking, decorating, etc.). As a Whitlock (which my mom is convinced means something like, "consumer of much food"), I am also very passionate about gourmet cooking and baking. 

When you wake up to views like this, you can't help but wake up and glorify God for His splendid work!

   

   Breakfast is my absolute favourite meal of the day. Hence my choosing the title "Top of the Morning!!". I was elated when an Israeli friend confirmed that breakfast is to be eaten like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper. (Although I think mine is more like: breakfast like a king, lunch like a king, and dinner like...a king.) 

"Breakfast," as Sesame Street muppets sang it, "Is the most important meal of the day."

   

   

   Before you make a decision to follow me, I must say this: you gotta love food... And if you don't share a passion for food... well... this is the place for you too. :-) 

   My father was a Ranger in the United States Army and one of their prerogatives is, "Never leave a man behind." - I don't intend to. Anytime I run into someone who merely eats to live, I feel an overwhelming compassion for them. Then my innate marketing side comes out as I take on the task of showing this obviously (in my opinion) sheltered person that there is "a whole new world" out there. You just have to open your eyes!

   So... With all that said: welcome! Enjoy the ride and participate through comments and support, if you feel so led. It'll be a bumpy ride; but I can guarantee an adventurous one, as well.

'Whelp... That's all I have to say about that.'