South African rusks recipe has to be the single biggest search term that brings new visitors to my blog. It seems that there are an awful lot of ex-pat South Africans desperate for a good rusk to dip in their rooibos tea, stranded in foreign lands where the only option is to bake your own. And not only ex-pats: my sister-in-law turned to Google when looking for a new rusk recipe and found the recipe she picked from the search results rather familiar – she’d ended up on my blog with the same…

It’s early for a weekend morning. Consciousness dawns and with it a reminder that I need to bake muffins for my husband to take in to his photography workshop. Semi-awake, it’s out to the mulberry tree, early sunshine flirting with clouds to see who will be the dominant partner today. The tree is usually dripping with ripe berries, but it was well raided yesterday and I have to look carefully under leaves and in between branches to fill my cup. Sift together dry ingredients. Mix together wet…

South African Crustless Milk Tart A couple of days ago, on a winter afternoon, with an over-supply of milk from the weekend about to hit its sell by date, I suddenly had a yen for a nice, creamy rice pudding. The sort that you can throw into the oven and come back to a couple of hours later for a dose of starchy, stomach-warming, central heating. Long, long ago as students revising for our finals, this was our standby. One of us would assemble the ingredients and chuck it into the oven. Our…

Malva Pudding with Apricot Jam and Gazanias Some of you gave such a rapturous reception to the crustless milk tart recipe that I thought I'd try out another of my sister-in-law's recipes for this typical South African pudding as a contribution to Johanna's hosting of Sugar High Friday. The theme is local sweet specialities. As an English girl transplanted to South Africa I've done a fair bit of transplanting and dissemination of some of my native recipes but have also adopted plenty of local…

An unusual silence for a Saturday morning. The house is holding its breath, a dog’s snoring the only sound above the rustle of leaves in trees, as an infant south-easter prepares to ruffle the hot morning air. I’m home alone, which hardly ever happens; the girls at an impromptu sleepover, my husband dropping our son and his inseparable computer at a friend’s house for the weekend before heading off to a meeting. I made all my noise earlier with the vacuum cleaner, washing machine and dishes…

An unusual silence for a Saturday morning. The house is holding its breath, a dog’s snoring the only sound above the rustle of leaves in trees, as an infant south-easter prepares to ruffle the hot morning air. I’m home alone, which hardly ever happens; the girls at an impromptu sleepover, my husband dropping our son and his inseparable computer at a friend’s house for the weekend before heading off to a meeting. I made all my noise earlier with the vacuum cleaner, washing machine and dishes…

...there's more to life than brownies.....but not much!!

Good chocolate, dark chocolate, seriously bitter chocolate… how dark can you go? Do you stop at 60% or can you take the almost no sweetness of 85% cocoa solids that stays on your tongue with no holds barred, chocoholic, I’m-in-need-of-a-fix madness. Looking for a chocolate tart recipe for a grown-up dinner party, I was thinking really bitter chocolate in a light pastry case: dark chocolate flavour and richness to complement an orange sorbet and the guava parfait that I’d just discovered…

Middle Daughter's first attempt at icing writing There’s something about heart shapes that automatically warm the... um... well... heart! Not that I’m a soppy romantic or anything but they just have a special energy that appeals to everyone, kids or adults. Maybe there are some stony-hearted sceptics who can’t stand them, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who wasn’t a sucker for a heart biscuit. Especially when they taste good, as well as looking delectably pretty. Ever since my Middle Daughter…

Strawberries have been an intrinsic part of my October and November life since before my blog began. Some years we’ve grown enough to sell, jam and feast on, others only enough to gather surreptitiously and tell no-one else about, lest we be short of a few jars of jam before the next season rolls in. Two years running we had a strange bug that bothered our strawberries (we grow organically so no sprays) and I spent ages sorting and chopping out the bug bits, jamming the remainder. Strawberry…

Easy peasy lemon squeezy just about sums up this pear cake recipe. It comes from my favourite Jane Grigson's Fruit Book (At Table) and she collected the recipe in France. Youngest was looking for something new to bake and since my sister-in-law had just harvested an abundance of pears from her tree, all of which were begging to be used up quickly, I turned to the pear section of the book. Two recipes for pear cakes sat side-by-side, both French, both very similar. Youngest chose this one…

Spring is in the air and yet the guava season continues. Our trees have been prolific this year, but are considerately allowing their fruit to ripen a little at a time now, so that we can get through one basket before we fill the next and stagger back to the house weighed down with golden globes of perfumery. At one stage I really did think I was going to get sick of guavas before the end of the winter, but they keep luring me back with their fresh fragrance and unique flavour. Hard to…