RED VELVET

Hey lovely people,

Hope you're enjoying this holiday season! Here is a little something to brighten up your day.

If you love cake, then you must love red velvet. The following is a timeless recipe, one that  I've used countless times and its never failed me.

The good news is that its very easy to make.

Also I'll have you know that you can make this recipe in two ways, baked into a cake, or into 24 cupcakes.
What I love the most about this cake is that its not an overly sweet cake because it has a slightly sour taste. Most people mistake red velvet with just any ordinary red cake. I especially hate going to some coffee shops that claim to serve red velvet but it ends up being a stale red cake. Red velvet is not just about the color but about the taste and texture and here's how to make it.

Ingredients:-

For the cake
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons vanilla essence
2 teaspoons soda bicarbonate
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup maziwa mala (buttermilk)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 tablespoon red food color [either bright red or tomato red]
Margarine [blueband] to grease your tin before baking

For the icing
200 gr Cream cheese
100 gr Icing sugar
200gr Unsalted Butter
4 tablespoons Milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the cake
Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
So start of by beating the eggs in a large bowl. Beat for about 1 minute. This enables the eggs to trap in the air which will help the cake in rising. Follow by adding the sugar and oil and beat well.
In a separate bowl, sieve the flour and mix with the cocoa powder and put aside. Once that is done, add the vanilla essence, soda bicarbonate and the apple cider vinegar and beat well. In a cup, mix the red food color with a tablespoon milk, and then add the rest of the milk and maziwa mala and add to the mixture. I have found this to work well as opposed to adding the color directly to the mixture which makes the cake bitter.
Finish of by mixing in the flour at a low speed until the entire mixture is blended well. Do not overbeat.

Use margarine to grease your baking tin and dust with flour before adding the batter to bake for 30-35 minutes. If you're making cupcakes, spoon the batter into the cupcake liners and bake for 12 minutes.
Note: Do not open the oven unless to remove the cake once it is done, since the air will escape and your cake might not cook well in the center.

For the icing
Beat the butter and cream cheese together in a bowl. Add milk, vanilla essence and the icing sugar and beat well until smooth.

Remove from oven. Insert a toothpick or knife in the center and if it comes out clean then you'll know that your cake is ready. Place on a rack to cool down. [Do not refrigerate]

Once the cake or cupcakes have cooled down, ice them with the cream cheese frosting.

You can also serve with fresh strawberries. Enjoy ;-)

Shout out to I6 Photography for taking the cupcake pictures a little while ago. Like I said, its a timeless recipe.

As always, I'll have you know:-

-I'm up to 15000+ pageviews-thank you Jesus! and thank you all for following and trying out my recipes.

-I'm now on Youtube, you can subscribe and check out the video here: CookingwithJaz

-I am officially on twitter on this account (@cookingwithjaz)

-I am also on facebook on this page "cooking with jaz"
-You can also find me on instagram under the handle, "cookingwithjaz"

-If you want to be featured on the "GUEST AND RECIPE OF THE WEEK" email me on "cookingwithjaz@yahoo.com"

-If you have tried any of my recipes, do tag me or send me the pics on any one of my social media pages

Have a lovely week :)

Sincerely,

Jaz.

CHICKEN COCONUT CURRY

Hey guys! 

Its 3 days to Christmas. Hope you all have your trees and decor up! I certainly do. I love how glorious Christmas is. I love celebrating Christ daily and a holiday to do just that is truly a plus. I'm super excited to spend my first Christmas married to the hubz. I'm thankful to God for life, salvation and for each and every one of my loved ones. I'm also extremely thankful for the growth of this blog and for open doors and all the closed ones that God has guarded us from.

So yes on to food things! I have been meaning to make a meal using coconut milk. I love how diverse of an ingredient it is, used in indian food, swahili dishes, and even thai cusine! I had some chicken thighs and a can of coconut milk so I decided to make a spicy meal yesterday together with some rice and steamed veggies. I also asked the hubz to buy some nans from one of our favorite Indian restaurants that complimented this meal perfectly.

Ingredients [serves 4]

Chicken [6 thighs/ 4 breasts cut in big chunks]

2/3 can coconut milk

140 gr tomato paste [two packets tomato paste]

1 onion

4 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon chopped ginger

Dhania

1 tablespoon royco

Olive oil

Salt

Black pepper

2 tablespoons chicken masala

2 tablespoons curry powder

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 yellow/red hoho/ capsicum

1 courgette

1 1/2 cup rice

1 packet mixed veggies [sliced carrots, french peas, brocoli]

Start of by cooking your rice. [Remember its double the cups of water per cup rice so in this case 3 cups of water for 1 1/2 cups rice] I used a rice cooker with a steamer so I used the lower part to cook the rice and the to part to steam my veggies. Season veggies with olive oil, black pepper and salt and leave to cook with rice.

For the chicken, peel and chop onions, garlic and ginger and cook them with olive oil in a sufuria.

Add the chicken masala and curry powder and allow to cook. <Use a few tablespoons water just incase the spices start to stick to the bottom of the sufuria.> Add the tomato paste and also allow to cook with the spices. Wash and chop the yellow pepper and courgette and add to the sufuria. 

Shortly after, add the coconut milk, a hint of salt and allow to cook with the spices and veggies.

After a few minutes, add chicken and leave to cook.

Mix 1 tablespoon royco, cayenne pepper, black pepper in a 1/4 cup water and add to the sufuria. Finish of with adding the dhania/coriander and seal with lid. <By adding it in the end it gives the curry a boost of flavor>

Allow to cook for another 15 minutes. Note that white meat tends to cook very fast. Make sure that the sauce is thick and light brown color.

 Remove from heat and serve with rice, nan and steamed veggies.

Enjoy.

As always, I'll have you know:-

-I'm up to 15000+ pageviews-thank you Jesus! and thank you all for following and trying out my recipes.

-I'm now on Youtube, you can subscribe and check out the video here: CookingwithJaz

-I am officially on twitter on this account (@cookingwithjaz)

-I am also on facebook on this page "cooking with jaz"
-You can also find me on instagram under the handle, "cookingwithjaz"

-If you want to be featured on the "GUEST AND RECIPE OF THE WEEK" email me on "cookingwithjaz@yahoo.com"

-If you have tried any of my recipes, do tag me or send me the pics on any one of my social media pages

Have a lovely week :)

Sincerely,

Jaz.