Frozen Coconut Ice – only 4 ingredients!

Do you want to build a snowman?

Or make a batch of icy treats?

I think some sugar here is overdue,

I’m talking to,

The banters who hate sweets!

Once upon a time we convinced ourselves that coconut was good for us, and that it fits perfectly into the low-carb:high-fat eating regime (which it kinda does, by the way). I have taken this useful information, and placed it in a far more practical application – the beauty and simplicity that is coconut ice. All your good fats, in one beautiful place.

And if you think there is too much sugar in this recipe (which there is, by the way), you can just Let It Go… Let it go, smile as you watch your tummy grow! Just kidding. Any treat can be enjoyed in moderation. In this case, moderation means one nibble per month, followed by at least a 21.1km half marathon.

Totally worth it…

Frozen Coconut Ice

Ingredients

• 1 can of condensed milk (400g)
• 500g icing sugar
• 400g desiccated coconut
• Food colouring of choice – in the case of Frozen, you may want to use blue

Method

1. Mix the condensed milk, coconut and icing sugar together until well-combined and consistent throughout
2. Divide the mixture in half and colour the one half to the desired colour
3. Press the white half of the mixture into a lined pan, such as a brownie pan, and compress down
4. Repeat with the other half for the second layer, ensuring it is smooth and even
5. Can be enjoyed straight away, cut into squares or other desired shape, and it lasts well (which is great because it can get very sweet)

Peanut Butter Oat Cookies

I know it may sound like a cliche, but peanut butter is my life. Especially these days. I almost feel guilty because we now have the wonders of cashew nut and almond butter, but I just don’t think you can beat a good ol’ table spoon of peanut butter (or three). Granted, peanuts aren’t really touted as being as cool as the rest of the super foods, and they are nut-posers which means we shouldn’t really trust them. However, these legumes are so versatile and so affordable, that you can pretend they are as healthy as their bourgeois counterparts.

I feel bad, as well, when I pack my boyfriend’s lunch for him each day (no judging – if I didn’t do this, he would live on 2-minute noodles and tinned tuna, his idea of a balanced meal), because I feel like there is no variety in his lunch, and basically every snack/meal contains peanut butter. Peanut butter smoothie, peanut butter sandwich, peanut butter-chocolate protein oats… Add these cookies to the mix, and I’m pretty sure he would turn into peanut butter. As if he wasn’t tasty enough…

These soft yet crunchy cookies unfortunately don’t do much for encouraging a healthy diet, even though they have peanut butter as their base (mostly because of the sugar). Peanut butter, I believe, is a pretty controversial snack/ingredient. On the one hand, they are a natural source of healthy fats and protein, which helps keep you full, and helps to keep your bones and muscles healthy. On the other hand, eating a whole jar of deliciousness doesn’t really count as moderation. Most unfortunate.

If you can manage the moderation, or if you at least have enough people to share these with that your portion is limited by default, then you should definitely give these a bake. If not, then just enjoy them because they peanut butter in its cookie form – as if you needed another way to enjoy peanut butter.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

• 200g wholewheat flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 125g butter
• 200g brown sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 100g rolled oats
• 175g chunky peanut butter
• 2 eggs

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC and line your baking trays
2. Cream the butter, sugar and cinnamon together until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs and oats
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda into the wet mixture and mix well
4. Portion out the cookie dough onto your prepared pans, and flatten the dough balls
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes until desired consistency. Slightly longer for a crispy cookie, slightly shorter for a more chewy cookie. Note that they will harden a bit once removed from the oven too
6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a cooling rack

Viennese Whirls

I am having such uncharacteristically strong cravings lately. Not in a weird way (I’m not pregnant), but my body is definitely telling me which nutrients I am lacking. Like salty or spicy potato chips (which I normally only each about 4 times a year). And chocolate too, which is normal for me, but not normally such an insatiable desire…

There’s also the inability to stop once I’ve started. I guess this is what happens when you attempt to be healthy! (Though being healthy is definitely paying off – six pack, here I come!)

So the other day I had a craving for those little melting moments shortbread cookies. I really just wanted the sweet buttery-ness to melt and dissolve on my tongue. With a nice dusting of icing sugar of course.

I Pinterested recipes for the little gems and I came across recipes for Viennese whirls, which are just a slightly different consistency, making them pipable. Result: the most professional-looking home-baked cookies I have ever made! And even better when dipped in the rare perfection that is Bournville (seriously, though, why have they stopped selling that in my local shops? Where did it go?!)

Make sure when you’re making these that the dough/batter is extremely soft – pop it in the microwave for 10 seconds or cream it extra well; you may end up with a split piping bag if you don’t.

I am also considering adding a dash of vanilla next time I make these, just to add a subtle sweet depth to them.

Viennese Whirls

Makes about 16-20

Ingredients

• 250g butter
• 55g icing sugar
• 225g cake flour
• 75g cornflour
• About 200g dark chocolate for dipping (I keep the quantity low so I don’t end up eating all the leftovers!)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C
2. Cream the butter and icing sugar together really well
3. Sift the cake flour and cornflour together, and add to the butter mixture. Mix very well
4. Place in a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto a prepared baking sheet
5. Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, just before they start to change colour
6. Remove and let cool before dipping in melted chocolate. Leave for the chocolate to harden

Gingerbread Cookies

Merry Christmas and happy new year and merry Christmas again! South African Christmas is really not our typical. It’s generally a scorcher of a day, and if you’re lucky, you get a “White Christmas” in the form of a massive hailstorm at the end of the day. There’s no Christmas jumpers, but maybe you’ll wear red “Christmas” shorts or a tank top, because really anything more than that and you’ll melt like Frosty the snowman.

Pardon my sad excuse at trying to write “The Kendz” with some leftover dough… At the end of the day, at least my name tastes good!

 

That doesn’t mean we don’t get to enjoy some other Christmas traditions like overeating and innumerable desserts. This year I made a meringue roulade filled with whipped Chantilly cream and strawberries. I didn’t even know such beauty existed until I got asked to make one, and wow! Really, do yourself a favour!

Christmas is the perfect excuse to indulge in as much cooking and baking as you like, so I used the opportunity to make some Christmasy gingerbread biscuits for Mr Kendz’s mother. I initially wanted to use a recipe that didn’t use molasses or honey or those weird ingredients, but they absolutes sucked! So I had to give in, get some golden syrup, and it made the absolute world of difference to the cookies!

They are perfectly chewy and soft, a gorgeous golden colour. They are officially my new favourite biscuits… I tried to make a YouTube video of myself making them…

… But I got distracted and ended up eating them before I could make a complete video…

Last year I decided was my adventure year. I think I did pretty well: I started rock climbing, went on an overlanding expedition through Africa, and Mr Kendz’s and I went camping independently for the first time (and learnt what not to do on future trips). My goal for this year is creativity. I’ve already painted a pot for my coffee plant (check out my Instagram), and I got creative with some chalkboard paint I got as a stocking-filler. Big plans ahead for this year!!! And hopefully it’s also filled with more biscuits just as amazing as these babies.

Gingerbread cookies
Makes as many as you want it to (about 35 small cookies, or 20 gingerbread men)

Ingredients

• 125g softened butter
• 100g brown sugar
• 125ml golden syrup
• 1 egg
• 375 plain flour
• 1 Tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together
2. Add the egg and syrup and mix well
3. Sift the spices and bicarb together with the flour and add to the wet mixture. Mix well until a well-incorporated dough has formed
4. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill for 20-30 minutes
5. Preheat oven to 170
6. Roll out the dough to about 4mm thick (fairly thick, almost like shortcrust pastry) and cut into shapes using a cookie cutter
7. Place cookies on a grease proof baking sheet/baking paper and place in the oven for 12-15 minutes. Remove when edges start to brown and let cool on a rack

Achievement Unlocked – Level Macarons!

Macarons have been my biggest challenge to date. Generally I am quite satisfied with my ability to follow a recipe and get my expected result. With macarons, however, this was not the case.

[Let me just clarify something quickly: macaroon vs. macaron. Think: coconut vs. almond flour.

Quick recipe for a macaroon: condensed milk and desiccated coconut, mixed in a ratio that lets you form little balls and place on a baking tray to bake at 180º until the edges start to brown and the biscuit is pretty firm]

My first attempt at macarons used a recipe from Dan Lepard‘s cookbook, Short and Sweet, which has proven delicious and basically perfect every time… until now. Then I tried Mary Berry and Great British Bake Off‘s chocolate macarons. I followed the instructions to a T, and they ended up burning anyway.

I figured it was time for a troubleshooting guide, when I stumbled upon this absolute gem. She even linked to her step by step guide to making macarons, which I tried after re-attempting Dan’s recipe using some of her advice. This was my result:

Her recipe was the first to start coming out right. But surely I didn’t have to follow all of her steps? Who has time to wait overnight for egg whites to mature? As it turns out, it is important, and it makes a substantial difference.

What also helped, was this guy. I absolutely love his work! His tutorials on macarons showed me that I might have been over-beating my eggs, and maybe I was “not overmixing” too carefully. Fully incorporated, people!

Eventually, I ended up with these bad boys, which I made for our Christmas party. Aren’t they beautiful! And added bonus was that they were gluten free, so everyone, even the fussies (though not the Banting folk), could enjoy dessert.

They were accompanied by vanilla cupcakes with green cream cheese frosting, and cute little marshmallow reindeer that my little cousin thoroughly enjoyed.

Marshmallow reindeer

Vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Macarons

Makes about 30 sandwiches

Ingredients

• 3 egg whites
• ¼ tsp creme of tartar
• 210g powdered (icing) sugar
• 125g ground almonds/almond meal/almond flour
• 30g caster (granulated) sugar

Method

1. Separate the egg whites. Leave overnight to mature in the fridge, and remove from fridge well ahead of time to allow to come to room temperature
2. Sift the icing sugar and ground almonds together. Place this into a food processor and blend together until very fine and resembles a flour. Do this in stages, and make sure you’ve scraped down the sides of the food processor to break everything up. Also don’t go for so long that the mixture starts to heat up (we are making macarons, not over-sweetened almond butter)
3. Sift the icing sugar-almond mix back into the bowl. If there are any remaining chunks of almond, remove them, they will make the mixture lumpy – DO NOT PUSH THEM THROUGH
4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and creme of tartar until very soft peaks form – peaks should hold their shape for long. Add the granulated sugar here in two stages, beating until stiff peaks form (but not hard peaks – they should have some movement to them still). Colour your meringue mixture now, using powder or gel food colourings – don’t use liquid colouring
5. Add one third of the almond mix and fold in gently. Once it has started to combine, add the second third, and repeat with the final third. Ensure mixture is of the same consistency and there are no dry patches
6. Place mixture into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle about 0.5-0.8cm in diameter. Pipe this onto a stencilled mat or template, taking care not to put too much mixture for each biscuit as they spread quite a bit. Tap the baking tray firmly onto your working surface to remove any air bubbles. If there are remaining bubbles on the surface, give these a pop with a tooth pick
7. Leave to form a shell at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Just before that time is up, preheat oven to 160ºC
8. Place baking tray in the oven, and bake for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 140ºC and continue to bake for another 5-7 minutes
9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before sandwiching together with filling. I filled mine with canned caramel (boiled condensed milk trick) sprinkled with some salt (salted caramel), a coffee buttercream, and some leftover green cream cheese frosting from the cupcakes

My local – Urban Angel Café

It’s taken me ages to get this post out, purely because I love this little café so much that I would rather spend my time eating there than being tortured by the glorious memory of it. That’s before I even have to edit all the photos of their amazing food. Gosh no, it’s just too difficult. Urban Angel Café is my new favourite little hot spot, and it’s less than 3km from home!

Amazing range of breakfasts and café meals – quinoa with apple and salted caramel, french toast with banana and nut butters (homemade), and hugely delicious chicken prego burgers

So I’m writing this post in the comfort of their wafts of freshly baked bread, with an unhampered view of their mountain of fresh biscuits, sitting on the counter, whips of steam still practically floating above them.

This is my first draw once I walk in the door: every day they have something new and interesting on offer, from bagels and mince pies to protein bars and cheesecake brownies. Cookies and doughnuts and all sorts of different breads keep the meals special on each visit

What I absolutely love about this place, is their modern menu. And I don’t mean modern in a pretentious way, where owners are trying to sell the “next best thing”. I mean they genuinely care about producing meals that taste amazing and happen to have all these amazing new superfoods in them. You can go to Urban Angel café on pretty much any diet, and you will probably find something that suits you – and it’s guaranteed to be delicious.

The bagel bun is my go-to breakfast as a protein filled bun of fresh sour dough bread. Their meals are original with everyone’s favourite toppings, like cream cheese! “Eggs done your way” is also one of the awesome things about the café

And if you’re not on a diet, they have these incredible brownies that were recommended to me by everybody – friends and strangers alike – that I tried to resist for so long. I knew that if I gave in, it would be over for me. And it was… My advice: stay away from the brownies if you value your waistline.

Sweet and salty mocha with a swirl of caramel. Literally best drink ever!

For the most part, their creativity is pretty spot-on. My first experience of their food wasn’t that great though. I ordered a peanut butter espresso milkshake and was highly disappointed to find it was made with homemade nut butter, a combination of peanut and cashew. In the end it just tasted like very milky coffee with chunks of nuts. But hey, that’s what happens when you try to be too healthy, it doesn’t always work out. Pretty good otherwise!

Their meals are reasonably priced and really generous, full of healthy goodness! Grilled chicken with beautifully flavoured sides – their mash was some of the best I’ve ever had!

Their service is great as well, always extremely friendly.

Urban Angel Café: Bakery, Café and Food Store can be found just behind the shopping centre in the office park (President Fouche Drive And Hawken Avenue, Randburg, Johannesburg). It’s a bit difficult to find, but I guess that way it can be a little piece of hidden gold until everyone learns about its magnificence.

Condensed milk biscuits

One more day of exams left and I am still baking up a storm. There were 60 scones in my kitchen today! There are only 3 people that live in my house, and no, I am not planning a party… They are actually for a fundraiser at my old primary school.

Surprisingly, my food has all gone to fairly good causes this week. And when I say “good cause”, I mean that it didn’t get eaten by only me, my mother and my brother. I baked “healthy” choc chip banana bread which I took to a fabulous games evening. I also shared these cookies with them.

Condensed milk is one of my guilty pleasures. We hardly ever have any in the house unless we actually have a recipe that requires it, and generally then the recipe will require all of it (though we don’t scrape the tin out into the recipe, we reserve that for teaspoons of sneaky deliciousness). These biscuits are incredibly delicious as they are, but they also serve as a great base for other biscuits, such as chocolate chip, or macadamia and cranberry cookies. I also made some chocolatey choc chip cookies that were amazing, and they didn’t want to be left out of the photoshoot, so you can get a sneak peak at those as well.

 

Condensed milk cookies with choc chips, macadamia nuts and cranberries, and plain goodness

Condensed milk biscuits

Ingredients

• 340g cake flour
• 225g butter
• 110g caster sugar
• 200g sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• ½ tsp baking powder

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC
2. Cream the butter and sugar
3. Add the condensed milk, flour, vanilla and baking powder and mix thoroughly. Add extras at this stage
4. Roll cookie dough into 4cm balls and place on a prepared baking tray
5. Flatten the balls slightly with a fork
6. Bake for 15 minutes until the biscuits are golden. Allow to cool slightly before removing from the baking sheet

These chocolate bad boys come from the recipe book I used for my bread. I had a hankering for chocolate cookies, so I went a bit wild and made all the cookies

3 Ingredient ratio cookies

In school we found ourselves asking: “why do we need maths? We are never going to use the gradient of a hyperbole anywhere in our lives! Who even cares what x equals, I want to be an artist/lawyer/journalist/psychologist/fireman.”

I am pleased to let you know, that I have found a use for maths that goes beyond simple addition and subtraction – we all knew that was important, how else would we be able to count our pieces of cake or get sad as people eat all your chocolates, one by one? Maths is beyond useful in these Ratio Butter Cookies, where all you have to remember is 3 little numbers. It’s so easy, you’ll quickly forget that it’s based on mathematical principles.

These 3:2:1 cookies are my go-to biscuits when I am bored, craving cookies, or when I want to make a gift for someone. As a baker, I think that giving baked goods is like giving a little part of myself to the person, so it’s a personal gift, which is my favourite type of gift. As you can see from the photos, my skills with the biscuits definitely improved the more I made them, but that’s what this blog is about: learning.

I used these fabulous cookie cutters I got from Yuppiechef, which imprint your chosen letters and words onto the cookies. Trouble is, someone has since hidden my pack of letters, so now I have to be creative when choosing my messages, because I only have the letters that were used in past messages. How many different ways can you use the letters: T. H. E. K. E. N. D. Z.? For those of you who are good with anagrams, there’s a challenge for you.

Ratio butter cookies – dark chocolate and orange butter cookies

Ingredients

• 300g cake/plain flour
• 200g salted butter (or unsalted, with a pinch of salt added later)
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 tsp orange zest (or lemon zest, but this doesn’t go as well with the dark chocolate)
• melted dark chocolate (about 1 slab, depending on how much of the cookie you want to cover in chocolate)

Method

1. Cream the softened butter and the sugar with the orange zest until smooth, light and creamy, almost fluffy
2. Add the flour mix together until well-combined. You may want to get your hands in there to make sure it all comes together nicely
3. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes. It can also be frozen in a sausage shape to be cut into discs whenever you want it
4. Heat the oven to 180ºC, and line a baking tray
5. Roll out the cookies and cut into the desired shapes. Make sure they are all of even thickness or they will cook at different speeds
6. Place on the prepared baking tray and place in the oven
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until light golden and they no longer look wet. Depending on how crispy you like your cookies of course…
8. Remove from the oven and let them cool completely
9. Melt the dark chocolate (double boiler or in the microwave, but be careful not to let it burn), and dip cookies as desired, placing them on baking parchment to set.

Peanut butter granola bars #healthynothealthy

So I’ve decided I want to be healthy. But not really. I like the idea of being healthy, all the wonderful benefits you get from it, and those Insta-fit-foodies make their #healthy food look so damn delicious! It almost makes you want to live off fruits and veggies and protein brownies made from zucchini or chocolate mousse made from avocado. I type that and I cringe inside. Being healthy /sounds/ awful.

As a result, I am trying to weed out the delicious recipes from the ones who are trying too hard. I’ve been working on some granola bars, and they’ve turned out ok, but they’re not quite right yet. I experimented with other granola bar recipes, and, surprise surprise, it’s the unhealthy ones that work out the greatest! They are a dream to make, and they taste fabulous. I made them once, and by the end of the same weekend, I had to make a few extra batches for my brother to take to school and the household supply was finished. These things are like little bars of heaven.

They’re not all bad: they do have oats in them, which is a nice substitute for flour. But there is also flour. And a lot of (brown) sugar. But there’s dark chocolate, so that should counteract the sugar, I rate. And of course the star of these bars: peanut butter. Peanut butter just makes everything healthy. Even if it is the whole jar – in one sitting. Totally healthy, I swear! Trust me, I’m a biokineticist (with no scope for nutritional advice just by the way; make of that what you will).

Granola bars aren’t exactly a pretty thing. But they are super delicious bars filled with goodness, and if they make you feel healthy, maybe you’ll be motivated to do some exercise too! Even I had to move some weights to take this photo. #liftingbru

I’ve adapted (South Africanised) this recipe from my favourite blogger. Her food is amazing.

 

Peanut butter granola bars

Ingredients

• 1 2/3 Coats
• 1 C Rice Krispies
• 1/3 C flour
• 1 C desiccated coconut
• 1/2 tspn salt
• 1/4 tspn cinnamon
• 2/3 C brown sugar
• 1 tspn vanilla
• 1/2 C melted butter
• 2/3 C crunchy peanut butter
• 1/3 C honey
• 1 cup chocolate chips or chopped up Bournville works beautifully too

Method

1. Mix all your ingredients together (don’t use a mixer, this will break up the Rice Krispies and you’ll lose all your texture)
2. Press the ‘batter’ into a dish lined with baking parchment (or foil would work too). Make sure you press it all together quite well, or it can crumble a bit a lot when you cut it
3. Bake in a preheated oven at 180  degrees for 30 minutes or until the edges start to go brown (cooked brown, not burnt!)
4. Remove from oven and leave to cool. Maybe go for a run while you wait – see: healthy granola bars!

 

Coffee London – broadening horizons

In my effort to learn more about coffee, I took advantage of my time in London to try out as many of their different coffee options as possible. On a student/intern budget, this was difficult. But who needs real food anyway?

I had this coffee to give commercial brands their due. BUT: down with the corporation! Just kidding. Although their coffee is consistent, it’s nothing special. Their food and browies and mini loaves are pretty good too, but not something you can justify too regularly at those prices (well, for a student anyway)

Coffee ‘selfies’ are so cliché right?
Viola’s was right by my house, and their cinnamon rolls were inspirational!
Route was ambitiously situated right next door to Starbucks, but their coffee was not really the greatest…
Leif was in Leamington Spa, but it was a great caffeine fix, though not a very refined brew.
The golden coffee was a caramel hazelnut latte of deliciousness with fudge chunks on the whipped cream. It was, obviously, out of this world.

Pret is on just about every corner in London, and their coffee is pretty decent. I had their hazelnut chocolate bells and whistles latte thing that was amazing. Their food is pretty good, and, as with all chains, they provide consistency in their quality

This little place was right along my way to work. It was a quaint little set up, with good coffee and your usual treats and snacks (here I had a Cowboy cookie that was really delicious), of really good quality. Perfect for an on-the-go-cuppa

Their coffee and their food was really great! Situated on Whitechapel High Street, near the Aldgate stations. When I was there, they didn’t have a sign outside so it was quite hard to find, but so worth it once I did!

Love in a Cup wins my vote as best of the coffees that I got to try in London. It is in the famous Brick Lane, in a little hole in the wall, with a super cute inside set up. It has character, great coffee, and sweetness. The service was lovely, and their prices were also reasonable compared to what you may pay at other London establishments. Their coffee was truly superb (as was their white chocolate chip cookie)