Zee's Treats

Mango mousse with cherry topping

2017-06-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Ramadan kareem

Its been a while since I posted "I know....I always do that...sighs" , But I'm happy to announce that I'll be upgrading the blog into a full grown website soon and also we have just started a youTube channel where we will be posting videos of all the fun recipes we make.

In this first Video, we will be making a delectable mango mousse. I was fasting while I made this video so I didn't get a chance to taste it until after iftar and trust me "IT WAS DELICIOUS". The texture was simply amazing, so smooth and silky...anyways let me stop praising the mousse and give you the full recipe already.

Here's what you need

For the mango mousse

1 large Mango (2 medium sized mangoes or 3 small mangoes)

3 tablespoons of sugar

1/3 cup of water

3 tablespoons of Icing sugar

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of water

2 teaspoons of gelatin

1/2 cup of soft peaked whipped cream(plus extra for topping)

For cherry topping

8-10 glace cherries

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

1/4 cup of water

Cut up your mango or mangoes, get rid of the flesh then put it in a pot. Add in 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1/3 cup of water..Boil for about 12 - 15 minutes(your mango should be very soft).

Next you pour the soft mango in a blender, add in the icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, blend until it is smooth (about 3 minutes). In a small plate, pour 2 tablespoons of water and sprinkle 2 teaspoons of gelatin all over it. Let that sit for about 5 minutes to bloom then fold into warm mango puree. set that aside to cool.

For the cherry topping

In a small plate, add in the cherries with 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, use a fork or a mortar to mash everything together. Pour the mashed cherries in a small sauce pan, add in 1/4 cup of water and heat for about a minute or two, Set aside.

Fold in half cup of cream into the cooled mango puree. spoon the mango mousse halfway into your glasses leave it in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes to set. Once set, spoon in some of the cream and return it to the fridge to set for about 10 minutes. Once the cream is set, top it up with some more mango mousse and return it to the refrigerator.

Time for the cherry topping, at this point, If your cherry topping is too thick, you can always add a little bit of water and take it back to the heat to dissolve it. As soon as it cools, spoon it on top of the mango mousse, you can return it to the refrigerator till you're ready to serve.

Hope you liked this post and I hope you guys try it out since were still in mango season. Don't forget to subscribe.

stuffed crepes

2016-08-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well, I know times are hard but we just need to keep praying to God to see us and our families through and I know he will. I just started teaching a cooking and baking class and we'd obviously be going through a wide range of recipes so I thought to post a few of them on here. This is actually a cost effective recipe and a healthy one too, I mean we're basically eating vegetables except for the mayo I added, I just couldn't do plain veggies I mean the mayo just balances it out for me talk about yum!,but if you don't want the extra fat, you could skimp on the mayo or do without it completely.
First we need to make our crepes,these are french style pancakes usually very thin, you can make them either savory or sweet but for this recipe we would make them savory i.e no sugar then we make our filling for the crepes which I already mentioned earlier consists of vegetables although it doesn't have to be, you could fill them with chicken, beef, sausages, whatever you come up with. You could also make sweet crepes by adding about 2 tablespoons of sugar to this crepes recipe, then you could fill them up with a sweet filling like peanut butter, nuttela or jam. Its all about you, its your food so can do anything with it. Its a quick, easy and time saving recipe. Hope you guys try it.

Here's what you need
For the crepes
1 cup of flour
1 cup of milk
1 egg
1/4 cup of oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder

For the veggie filling
About 2 cups of lettuce
3 medium sized tomatoes
6 carrots, grated
1 medium sized green bell pepper
1 medium sized red bell pepper
1 cucumber
A dash of salt and black pepper
About 3 tablespoons of mayo or to taste

First we need to make our crepes, now combine all the ingredients for the crepes in a bowl in no particular order and mix together with a whisk. See I don't have detailed pictures on this post because I didn't think I was going to put it up on the blog at first, I only decided after I was almost done making them. So sorry we don't really have pictures today but I think its pretty easy to understand even without pictures

Back to the recipe, you should mix everything together until its properly combined, your batter should be of a pretty thin consistency.
Now heat up some oil in a pan or you could just use cooking spray on the pan over medium heat, then spoon a little bit of the batter inside it, move the pan around to spread the batter evenly across it. Fry for about 1 minute and then flip over to fry on the other side. you should have a pretty thin pancake, continue to fry until you have emptied your batter. It should give you about 7-8 crepes.

Now for the filling, wash and rinse your vegetables properly, you could wash them with salt to get rid of germs In a clean blow, tear the lettuce into smaller pieces with your hands, slice your bell peppers into long and thin slices and toss in the bowl, add in your grated carrots, quarter your cucumbers i.e cut round slices of the cucumbers and then cut each slice into half, then quarter. Do the same for the tomatoes then toss in the bowl along with the rest of the veggies.

Now add in 3 tablespoons of mayo and mix together until combined then add in a dash of salt and black pepper.

Now the next step is to fill your crepes , place your crepe on a flat surface, add about 2 spoons of the filling to the edge and then roll it to seal it, its that simple. Do this for the rest of your crepes until you run out of crepes or out of the filling. If you have any leftover veggies, you could just arrange them on your plate like I did. It could be eaten as a salad and it also makes for good presentation.

Enjoy

If you like this post,please leave a comment below and also don't forget to subscribe to my blog, All you have to do is provide your email address in the textbox below. Thank you.

yummy orange bars

2016-07-29T05:52:00.003-07:00

I am a sucker for lemon squares, the fact that they are sweet and tangy just does it for me. I think they are the perfect treat and would love to make them all the time not just because they are easy to whip up but because they are simply delicious but if you live in Lagos like me, I'm sure you know that lemons are hard to come by especially in ikorodu. Of course we can get lemons in big supermarkets like shoprite but on this afternoon, it was just a quick craving and there was no time to run to the supermarket to get lemons. did I mention that they are also very expensive?.
Anyways, I wanted to eat these cookies so I thought of a substitute. Now oranges on the other hand are everywhere and also very cheap,you don't even have to think too much to get oranges around here thank God for that, so I decided to make orange bars. I know..why didn't I think of lime, limes are closer to lemons but I only remembered limes after I was done baking. I would definitely be trying limes next time.
I got some oranges and got to work, trust me, they weren't half bad. They had my brothers fighting for and scraping what was left in the pan. If I'm ever out of lemons again, orange bars aren't a bad idea. They are perfect for a sunny afternoon and would go down with a nice cool drink, you can also refrigerate and keep them for a later time because they taste even better when cool. All ingredients used are easy to get no matter where you are so I hope you give this a try. Also if you happen to have lemons and want to make lemon bars instead, all you have to do is replace the orange juice in the recipe with lemon juice and orange zest with lemon zest

Here's what you need
For the cookie layer
1 and half cup of flour
A scant half cup of powdered sugar
2 tablespoons of corn flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
80 grams of oil
20 grams of water
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

For the orange layer
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 cups of white sugar
4 tablespoons of flour
1/2 cup of orange juice *gotten from 2 juicy oranges*
2 tablespoons of freshly grated orange zest.

Measure all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk together. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil and water and then add it to the dry ingredients. bring together with your hands, you should have a non sticky dough like the one in the picture below.

Next you need to get a 9 inch square pan and spread your cookie dough all over it, using your hands make sure you get the dough in every corner of the pan. Once that is done, you need to get a fork and prick the dough all over to avoid rising during baking.

Now bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until it starts to turn golden brown, set aside to cool.

Next whisk together the eggs and egg yolks, add in the sugar, flour, orange juice and orange zest and mix together

Pour the orange mixture over the cookie layer and then bake in the oven for about 30 - 35 minutes or until the orange layer sets.

You see, I left mine in the oven for a bit too long and it got a little dry as you can see from the image below. It stayed in the oven for a total of 45 minutes, God knows what I was doing. Anyways I was still able to salvage it, I scraped off the rough top of the cookie and then cut them into rectangles and voila my orange bars were ready.

So I just played around with chocolate ganache and made jello out of an orange drink to get this pretty plate below. Hope you guys like it

Also guys, please don't forget to subscribe to my blog so I can send you new posts directly and contact you in case of any freebies. Who knows? someone might just win a basket of delicious snacks, just enter your email below and click on the subscribe button. You can also subscribe to our feeds, its fast, free and easy.

light and decadent swiss roll

2016-07-20T07:53:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time I was interning in a bakery in Lagos, I learned quite a lot from them I must say, working in a professional bakery was a challenging experience but I did, talk about being on your feet all day and it wasn't even a paid job. I don't regret it anyways and I would probably do it again if the bakery wasn't so far from my house.
One of the perks of working there was the fact that I got to taste a few of their new products ranging from blueberry muffins, cakes even bread..tho I'm not a fan of bread. One faithful day I saw two beautifully garnished Swiss roll logs, just sitting pretty on their trays and I couldn't take my eyes off them, "just a bite" was all I could think about. After a little while, I figured they weren't going to share so I walked away sadly. I got back to work, After a few minutes, I heard the bakery manager say "Please feel free to try out the Swiss rolls and let us know what you think", I was so excited but I contained it, I just slowly walked over to the table with others acting like I hadn't even seen the Swiss rolls, I grabbed a slice and it disappeared. Yup it melted in my mouth, I couldn't believe it. All I could think was"I have tried making Swiss rolls before now and they never tasted this good." but you know no one was going to share the recipe.
Anyways all this happened last year...Fast forward to this year, I was watching TV and started craving something sweet, it happens like that, then I thought Swiss roll but not just any Swiss roll, the kind I had the previous year...Light, fluffy and decadent Swiss roll that just melts in your mouth.
Of course I had made Swiss rolls in the past, the first time I tried it omg..I got the sponge right but my filling was the problem, I still had my fear of whipping cream(its when I don't whip my cream stiff enough out of fear of it breaking or I over whip it and it breaks anyway. p.s I still have that but I can control my cream better now). On this day, my cream broke apart I was a novice and I thought I could use it like that, I filled my sponge and the liquid just soaked the sponge and everything became a mess, Second time the sponge was not light but it was not so bad, at least we could eat it, the third try, I still had the same case of the heavy sponge then I decided to glaze it to make it look pretty but lets just say things didn't work out so I didn't try again.
On this day, all I could think about was achieving the same texture. So I started researching the whole morning and I finally found this recipe on washoku guide and something told me that was it, especially with the beautiful picture of the swiss rolls on their page. I decided to try it and I struck gold. I had achieved it, the best Swiss roll ever.

Lets get started, Here's what you'll need
For the sponge
3 eggs
80 grams of granulated sugar
60 grams of cake flour
20 grams of butter
20 grams of milk

For the filling
About a cup of heavy cream
20-40 grams of powdered sugar
A dash of vanilla extract if you'd like

Now start by melting together your butter and milk

Measure 60grams of cake flour not 80 like the picture says. If you don't have cake flour, just do what I did, measure half a cup of all purpose flour and add 1 tablespoon of cornflour then sift together 5 times before using.

Now, no pictures because I forgot to take some but next you need to clean the bowl of your mixer properly, crack your eggs in the bowl and add in your sugar then warm them over a bowl of simmering water. mix them together until the sugar dissolves. Now get back to you mixer, attach the whisk attachment and whip up the eggs until stiff peaks form.

Now fold in your sifted flour little at a time with a rubber spatula, just folding gently

Fold until it has been properly mixed together then slowly add in your butter and milk mixture, fold properly and continue to fold for a while until your batter is shiny

By now, your batter should be ready. So go ahead and pour it onto a sheet cake pan. Now I didn't have a sheet cake pan when I made this so I just made one out of foil then put it on my oven tray.
Next thing to do is to spread the batter evenly then tap the tray on the kitchen counter about 3 times to let out air bubbles then bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for about 6-8 minutes.

Now flip your sponge unto a piece of parchment paper that has been sprinkled with powdered sugar to avoid it sticking. you can try to scrape off the brown bits, I certainly tried but go tired so I decided to leave it alone. Its not like it was going to show anyway.

Now whip your cream or buy already whipped cream and fill your sponge with it, this next part is crucial and I also forgot to take pictures but I will try to explain comprehensively.
Start from end close to you, using the shorter length of the sponge, spread a layer of cream on your sponge but leave about half an inch of space along the borders. Now pick up the sponge by the edge close to you and roll tightly kinda like rolling a sausage, then wrap tightly in cling film and refrigerate. Decorate as you'd like, I just piped on some leftover whipped cream and sprinkled on some chopped cherries.
Chill before you serve...Enjoy

It's a pasta concoction guys

2016-06-10T03:42:00.000-07:00

My first post since march

    As you all may know, I explained or at least tried to explain why I had been absent from the blog in the previous post, feel free to read it if you haven't already. I hope it clears things up.

   Today's post is about a certain pasta or (spaghetti) dish that I made a certain type of way. I think you all are gonna love it. The first step requires you roasting your vegetables, Now this part I saw while scrolling through Instagram one day and I saw a post by awesomedishes in which she was about to prepare stew so she tossed her tomatoes and peppers in the oven for a while to infuse flavor and for a second there I was stuck staring at that particular post, who knew you roast your peppers before cooking with them. *certainly not me*.
    Anyways after recovering from my roasted pepper shock, I thought "no way I'm gonna try this". so I got up and checked out whatever ingredients I had and decided to whip up a pasta concoction but this time, with roasted peppers.

Here's a list of ingredients I used

8 medium sized tomatoes
11 pieces of rodo aka scotch bonnet. *you can reduce the number of scotch bonnets you use if you don't like things spicy*
1 small onion bulb or more if you like
I pack of pasta i.e whichever brand you eat.
About a cup of shredded chicken.* boiled or grilled or even fried. leftover chicken will do just fine.
about half a cup of dried up ugu or ugwu leaves(pumpkin leaves). * you can use fresh ugu or ugwu leaves, dried ones where what I had on ground*
Curry
Thyme
Some Italian seasoning I had in my kitchen. *you can omit them if you don't have them*
Salt
Stock cubes

The first thing you need to do is wash your vegetables properly, wash your tomatoes, onions and peppers, wash them properly and cut your tomatoes in half.
Next I lined my baking tray with foil and preheated my oven to 160°C. Now place all you have washed on you baking tray, drizzle some oil *whichever oil you choose to use, olive oil or vegetable oil* over the tomatoes and peppers.
Also sprinkle curry and thyme over them and place your tray in the oven for about 30 minutes to 1hour. you can take them out of the oven before the 1hour is up, just make sure they get properly roasted for you to achieve the best of flavors, be careful not to burn them tho.

Here, they have been properly cleaned and arranged on the tray covered in oil, curry and thyme.

Look at those tomatoes now, after about 40 minutes, shrunken and have released a lot of juice, don't worry, it can still be used. I discovered there were a few benefits from roasting your peppers before using them in your recipes. Apart from infusing flavor, the peppers have been cooked a little which will definitely reduce your cooking time when you are finally ready to cook with them and also the smell of your kitchen will be absolutely wonderful due to the curry and thyme that has also been roasted all well. I think I just might try roasting my peppers next time I make jollof rice and let you guys know how it turns out.

Next I tossed them in my food processor with all the juice I managed to scrape off the foil sheet, not leaving any of this pepper goodness behind.

Blend the peppers until you have a smooth paste. you can most definitely use your blender for this.

Next, pour some vegetable oil in a pan *again you can use olive oil if you are choosing to go healthy* heat it up and then toss in some chopped onions and minced garlic. sorry I don't have a picture for that part, I guess I forgot to take a picture.
Anyways cook your onions and garlic under low heat for about three minutes until they become translucent and then add in your blended pepper mix, still under low heat, cook for about 5 minutes, remember it has been partially cooked already.
After cooking, you can season with salt and stock cubes to your taste, reduce the heat and let it simmer. Now while sauce is simmring, you should cook your spaghetti in boiling water until it is al-dente. Al-dente means "firm to the bite" i.e it is not raw but it is not fully cooked either. just think of it like you are parboiling your spaghetti, then drain it and set it aside.

You know those Italian herbs and spices I talked about earlier, well its time to add them in. So add in a dash of parsley, sweet basil, origanum and Italian herbs. If all you have are Italian herbs, it would do just fine because it's basically a combination of all Italian seasoning. Also if you do not have any of these herbs and spices, you can leave it out.

Next I added my shredded chicken to the sauce, I didn't have any leftover chicken so I just quickly boiled about 3 chicken pieces and just tore them apart with my hands. I think I would have preferred leftover grilled chicken or maybe fried, but boiled chicken was what I could lay my hands on and it did just fine. Stir that into the sauce and also let it simmer.

Now we are almost finished, we get the parboiled spaghetti that we drained earlier and pour into our sauce, and we give it a good stir. Make sure it all nice and coated, taste to see if you need to add any extra seasoning, chances are you might need to.

Hope we haven't forgotten about our dried ugwu or ugu(pumpkin) leaves, Now if you are satisfied with the taste of your pasta, then its time to bring these babies in, They would simply just balance your dish out for you and like I said ealier fresh ugu or ugwu leaves would do just fine. Just make sure they are finely chopped and be careful not to add too much.
Add them in and a give it a good stir, you can take your pasta off the heat now or if you wont be comfortable you can wait for about two minutes before taking it off the heat.

Tadaa..

Here is my quick pasta dish with a pretty tomato rose garnish.. Don't worry tomatoes were not expensive when I made this dish, but nevertheless, I strongly encourage you guys to try out this recipe. Quick dishes like this that are easy to whip up would make your life so much easier and it tastes 10 times better than our regular concoction spaghetti. I think its time to switch things up. Hopefully, you guys feel the same way.

Hello guys

2016-06-09T23:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

First I'd like to say Ramadan Kareem, may this fasting bring Allah's mercy and peace to all our homes. I know I have been AWOL and I don't even know how to explain it this time, do I blame it on laziness again? Because its not forgetfulness, I didn't forget about the blog. I guess I would say I have been a little busy but not busy enough to ignore the blog for 2 months. I don't know what came over me but I am definitely back.
Its not like I didn't make anything all through the while I didn't blog, but I didn't document anything, No pictures...Nothing. I didn't even remember. I do have some things that I did a while back and just didn't get a chance to post, I'm gonna start to post them after this post and continue to work on some new things for you guys.
Once again...oh wait..I have not said it already. I'm sorry I abandoned the blog for so long, I really hope I don't do it again. I don't want to do it again.

Although, I had been making a lot of cakes all through the time I wasn't blogging, not for personal consumption though, for customers. Yup I bake professionally and maybe I would share pictures of some of my work with you guys and maybe one of these days also post one of my cake recipes just because they are simply amazing and you need to try them.

So I guess that's about it for this post, just for apologies really. I'm sorry guys, hope you continue to read my blog and try out some of the recipes that I'm also trying out. **muah** *in falzthebahdguy's voice* kizzes... Yup, I'm a fan.

Freshly made pina colada

2016-03-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Hello,

How is everyone? I just have to say the light in Lagos has been horrible, making it really hard for people to do a whole lot of things, we just hope Nigeria gets better. we can only hope.

Now this recipe requires the use of a blender, which needs electricity, which we don't have. I just hope you guys find the time to try it out, maybe when you're done fuel hunting for your generators.

Lets start:

You'll need:

2 medium sized ripe pineapples

1 coconut

Water
Rum(Optional)

Chop up your pineapples and coconut, this makes for easier blending

Toss both in the blender

Add about half a cup of water, then pulse for 5 seconds. do this up to 10 times.

Add a little more water if you feel its too thick. pulse for about 5 more seconds.

So I'm going to sieve one and serve it as a glass of juice and the other as a smoothie. I'm going to pass the former through a fine mesh sieve and squeeze all of the juice out of it.


silky smooth

smoothie

N.B: Most people add rum to their pina colada, you can add white or dark rum here or both even, as much as you'd like in it.
I preferred it as a silky smooth cocktail but my mum preferred the smoothie, if you'd like to leave it a smoothie, I suggest you finish it that day because coconut tends to taste soapy the day after. Not everyone might like to have it this way but I loved it.
I hope you guys find the time and the light to try out this recipe....Until next time

Peanut butter fudge brownies

2016-03-10T02:51:00.002-08:00

Hey people, Been a while

So I abandoned my blog for quite some time now, that was only because of stress, excessive stress and also a little bit of laziness but all that's gone now and I'm back. I might have been lazy to post but I sure as hell wasn't lazy to bake or cook. I have a list of things I did over my little "break" and I will be sharing them with you guys one after the other.
First lets start with this Peanut butter fudge brownies, as usual I had excess peanut butter on my hands and my brothers were going to finish it if I didn't act fast. I don't really like eating peanut butter unless its being used in a recipe but I was craving brownies so I decided to make this peanut butter fudge brownies.
I took my regular brownies recipe and decided to tweak it a little bit and try it out, After baking I gave some out to my trusted tasters(not just my brothers this time) and they said it was wonderful. I hope you guys try it too.

Here's what you need
100grms of dark chocolate
100grms of butter
128grms of peanut butter
1 cup of white sugar (200 grms)
1 cup of brown sugar
! cup of cocoa powder
1/2 cup of flour
1 tsp of salt
5 large eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp of coffee granules

Melt together butter, chocolate, peanut butter and coffee granules over a double boiler.
Double boiler: place a pot of water on low heat, then place over it a smaller pot containing the items you want to melt making sure that the bottom of the smaller pot does not touch the simmering water

Measure the flour, cocoa powder and salt

whisk all together

Measure both sugars

Add both sugars to the melted chocolate mixture and whisk well

Crack in the 5 eggs

Add in the rest of the dry ingredients and mix just until combined, be careful not to over-mix here so you don't end up with a chocolate cake

Line a 9 by 9 inch square pan with aluminum foil and let it hang over the sides so you can easily pull out your brownie when its done.

Bake at 350°F or 180° C for about 45 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.

Hmmm...No words

If you live in ikorodu and you want to be one of my trusted tasters and you also don't mind coming to get whatever it is, send me a mail or leave a comment below.

peanut cookies

2016-01-23T03:27:00.000-08:00

Hey people,

Its me again, this time I'm here with a banging peanut butter cookie recipe that I think everyone should try at home. Like I always say, its super easy to make and you only need a few ingredients.
Lets get started...Heres all you need.

2 and 1/4 cups of flour, sifted
135 grams of unsalted butter (softened)
115 grams of creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 a cup of crushed peanuts

Whisk your flour, baking soda and salt, set aside

Measure 125 grams of butter

Add in 115 grams of peanut butter

Add in both your sugar and mix on medium speed

Until creamy

Add two eggs and mix well

You can add a teaspoon of any flavoring you'd like

Mix in your flour mixture

Next, fold in your crushed nuts.

*ermm that should be crushed peanuts....yeah....crushed peanuts.

Cookie doughhh!!!!!!!!!

Its delicious..try it.

Wrap you dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes

I chilled mine for 3 days, mainly because I felt lazy to bake them but the good thing is the longer you chill your cookie dough the better it tastes but don't leave it for too long tho.

Next, you line your baking sheet with parchment paper. I ran out of parchment paper so I just greased my baking sheet.
Take out your cookie dough and let it rest on your kicthen counter for about 5 minutes or just until dough is pliable. Roll your dough into small balls and place on baking sheet, then place the baking sheet in the freezer for about 5 minutes. (I forgot to take pictures until the cookies were ready because I was simple baking cookies I prepared 3 days back)
After 5 minutes, take out your baking sheet and flatten the balls with the back of a spoon, just a little tho, you don't make them too flat because they will still spread out in the oven.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 12 minutes, rotating your tray halfway through baking time. Let them cool and enjoy.

Malt milkshake

2016-01-21T05:21:00.000-08:00

Hi guys,

I made this milkshake on the first of January but I have been so busy, haven't been able to post anything. This malt milkshake is so good and its exteeemely easy to make.
Here's what you'll need
2 bottles of your favorite malt drink (you can guess what mine is)
1 and half cup of heavy cream
Ice

Half-fill your blender with crushed ice

Fill your blender with your malt drink

Then add in your cream

Pulse for about 5 - 10 seconds

Fill your glass and enjoy, I stained my glass with melted ganache but you can use melted chocolate. Stain your glass before filling it with your drink, top with the foam in your blender and sprinkles then enjoy, or drink it directly from the blender because I tried that.*its that good*

Enjoy

Apple crumble cake

2016-01-04T06:38:00.000-08:00

Happy new year again.

Hi guys, how did you receive the new year? I slept through the night. This year has been good so far but I hope its gets better. Anyways lets start the new year with this apple crumble cake recipe I got out of a cookbook *just tweaked it a little bit...super easy.
Here's all you need:
50 grams of butter
1 egg
3 medium sized apples
1 cup of flour
6 tbsps of sugar
A dash on cinnamon
About a cup and half of streusel (just to cover up the mix)
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celssius

spring form pan

A pan with a detachable base, making it easier to get out your finished delicate baked goods. This is a 9 inch pan but you can use a smaller one if you like

Making this is super easy as long as you have your streusel in the freezer.

Clean, core, quarter and slice your apples

Add all other ingredients(except for the streusel) together in a bowl i.e butter, flour, sugar,egg and mix well *you can do this by hand

thick batter

Spread the batter in the pan

top with sliced appled

sprinkle a little cinnamon and sugar

Finally cover with streusel

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, longer time if you are using a smaller pan.

I drizzled salted caramel over it..it made it over the top

Have a great year guys.

Coconut muffins

2015-12-31T13:43:00.002-08:00

Happy new year!

Its almost new year guys, I hope everyone got their hearts desires and if not 2016 is another year, a new beginning and I wish for everyone to have a prosperous one. This year has been filled with a lot of ups and downs, everyone faced challenges, some not as much as others but notwithstanding we should thank God for seeing us through the year. 2016 will be much better by Gods grace.

Anyways I just want to drop this coconut muffin recipe before the year runs out, these are by far the best muffins I have ever made and the best part "its my recipe". we all know muffins are super easy to make so I hope you all try out this recipe

Here's what you need.
2 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp of white sugar
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp of brown sugar
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt.
2 eggs
3/4 cup of coconut milk
About half a cup of streusel. Link to recipe here
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

First, pour the desiccated coconut into a bowl and add 1 tablespoon each of brown and white sugar, mix together and set aside.*you can use freshly grated coconut but I'll suggest toasting it in a pan before use*

Next, whisk all dry ingredients together, these include flour, white sugar, salt, baking powder, set aside.
Next step is to whisk all the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl, i.e milk, eggs, brown sugar, oil.

3/4 cup of coconut milk

1/3 cup of oil

1/4 cup of brown sugar

Mix well

Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients


Whisk together


Batter will be thick

Line a muffin pan with 12 cupcake liners and fill each with about a tablespoon of streusel

Fill with muffin batter

Top with the desiccated coconut mixture that we set aside earlier and place it the oven to bake for 20 minutes. Insert a skewer stick, if it comes out clean then its ready.. if not let them bake for a few more minutes

These babies are so moist, so delicious, like I said before, best muffins I have ever made..Just a reminder Its my recipe..i'm so excited..
Anyways, y'all have a wonderful new year and I hope these muffins are part of what you'll make in the new year.
See you guys in 2016

Streussel topping.

2015-12-29T03:24:00.002-08:00

Alas,
I'm finally posting the recipe for the streusel. Its basically just a crumbly topping made of flour, butter and sugar. It can make almost any baked goods taste so much better and it also gives them a sweet crunch.
Lets get to it.
Here's my streusel topping recipe
2 cups of flour
100 grams of butter
Half a cup of white sugar
A quarter cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

2 cups of flour

100 grams of butter

1/2 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp of cinnamon

Add all together

Rub all together with your hands till they look crumbly

Done

You can keep it in a plastic bag and store in the freezer for future purposes.

Puffys...lol

2015-12-29T01:33:00.000-08:00

Hey guys

Have you ever been hungry but not craving real food and you don't feel like going out but you wanna have something simple like a snack, well I think puff puff is the answer.The puff puff sellers usually start frying around evening time but what if I feel like eating it in the morning. Nigerians love puff puff but many of us don't know how easy it is to put together. puff puff is super easy guys, anyone can make it.
Here is my recipe because I have a large family but you can always reduce it by half or double it. whatever you like once you have the basic ingredients..Its just puff puff.

6 cups of flour
1 Cup of sugar
A dash of nutmeg
2 teaspoons of salt
A tablespoon and half of instant yeast.
About 3 and 1/2 cups of warm water

Here are the basic ingredients

Add all dry ingredients together

Mix well

Make a well in the middle and add your warm water

Mix well until you have a pretty thick batter, as shown in the video. Then cover and leave to rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes to one hour, just until it has doubled in size.

As you can see my bowl was too small

You should use a bigger bowl so it wont have to rise to the top. Now here's the tricky part..Frying these babies.
Heat up some vegetable oil in a deep fryer or a deep frying pan, you know the oil is ready when you scoop a little and it bubbles back to the top almost immediately. Your oil shouldn't be too hot so they can cook properly but it should be just hot enough so they don't soak too much oil.
Here's how to get them to be round, scoop some of the batter in your hand then squeeze into the hot oil through the hole in between your index finger and thumb...kinda like you're making a fist.

let them fry until they turn golden brown

seee?

yum!

You can see for yourself puff puff = super easy.
Try these at home guys, save yourself the stress of having to walk down to that puff puff vendor or having to queue for these yummy snack.
p.s These are the measuring cups and spoons I use for almost everything. They would make life so much easier. they can be gotten from practically any baker shop and I think they only cost a little over 300 naira.

Coffee kisses

2015-12-22T06:32:00.001-08:00

Hey,
How is everyone today? hopefully not like me, been dealing with a sore throat and a hoarse voice. I'm getting better tho. I might not be well but I still felt like making something, so I grabbed my cook book and looked for the easiest thing I could make.
Then I found the recipe for these super easy coffee cookies called coffee kisses. Then I got up and went to the kitchen, its was so easy to throw together.
Here's all you need
A cup of flour
A quarter cup of icing sugar
125grms of butter
A teaspoon of coffee granules dissolved in half a tablespoon of water, cooled


Here

First preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Measure 125grms of butter.

sift in the icing sugar and cream together until light and fluffy

Add in the cooled coffee and flour

Until it looks like this

Scoop into a piping bag fitted with a medium sized rose tip

Pipe unto a baking tray lined with parchment paper

Bake in the oven for 5 minutes, turn the tray around and bake for another 5 minutes.

Aren't they pretty

I sandwiched them with dark chocolate ganache but you can use melted dark chocolate instead.

They are delicious but I do not recommend them for kids. Grown ups love them tho.

French macaroons

2015-12-20T05:37:00.000-08:00

Hey again,

French macaroons?...hmmmm

Guys this is just to share with you my experience with making the delicate cookies known as the french macaroons.
Lemme just start by saying I have tried to make these cookies four times but I failed every single time. My macaroons have never had the signature macaroon "feet", other times, they won't come off the baking sheet. I used four different recipes I got online for the four times I tried.
Although the first time I tried in 2014, I didn't know where to get almonds so I tried using peanuts instead, after mixing and piping (well I didn't really know what I was doing), the point is that the macaroons burned
although as usual my brothers found a way to eat some of them like that.
I felt they burned because I used peanuts so I said I wasn't going to try them again until I could find almonds.

       Then middle of this year, I found almonds and I tried again, they baked okay tho none of them had feet, some came off, some didn't.. Anyways we ate them and they were delicious they just didn't look like macaroons.
Then I tried again a few weeks later, these were so messy, didn't come off at all , we literally had to scrape them off the baking sheet before we could taste them.

       The fourth time I tried, I had excess cornmeal on my hands so I decided to make macaroons out of that. They came off quite nicely but as usual "no feet" and the cornmeal was too hard.
Well my brothers cleared them tho they didn't like it. *nothing wastes in my house, especially if it has a lot of sugar in it.* Sorry I dont have pictures from any of these fails, I was always too disappointed to even take a picture and I never imagined I was ever going to need them for a blog.

     Anyways, I gave up on macaroon making until the 19th of September when a chef I follow on Instagram (Chef antonio bachour *bachour1234 in-case anybody wants to follow him on IG* ) who makes perfect macaroons all the time posted his macaroons recipe and I quicly screen-grabbed it. He had given me hope again but I decided to be patient this time around so I wont mess it up.
   So I Tried it yesterday, followed the recipe to the letter, tried not to mess anything up and when I opened my oven to take them out and I saw "the feet" I screamed. I was so excited, I started to thank God and chef antonio bachour even tho he couldn't hear me *but I know God could hear me.

I dont really have detailed pictures because I was focusing of how I was going to get them right this time.

According to the recipe, I started out by sifting 125grms of almond meal(i'm sure you guys can make that) together with 150grms of confetioners sugar(Icing sugar).

Almond meal and icing sugar

egg whites

Then I scaled a hundred grams of egg whites, I got these from almost three medium sized eggs

Next I whipped my egg whites until foamy, then added 100 grms of granulated sugar 2tbsps at a time
until medium peaks formed. Next i added a few drops of food coloring and mixed it all together.

meringue

Next, add the sugar and almond meal mixture, then with a rubber spatula, fold everything together. Most recipes ask you to count because you don't want to over-mix or under-mix. The first recipe I tried said 30 folds, I also tried another that said 60-70 folds.
Chef bachour's recipe didn't specify, it just said to fold everything until smooth and glossy. So I folded and folded until I got the texture below, I didn't count but if I were to guess I must have folded about a hundred times.
The mixture was smooth but not runny.

Like this

Here I preheated my oven to 140 degrees. Next I piped them on to a baking tray lined with a parchment paper and a piping bag fitted with half an inch round tip. *piping isn't that neat but you get the point* Let them rest for about 30 minutes to get a hard shell. Then I placed my baking tray on the bottom rack of my oven and I baked them for 6 minutes, the moved them to the top rack and baked for another 6 minutes.

voila... they came out with the feet.

When they completely cooled, I sandwiched two together with dark chocolate ganache that I already had in the freezer. you can fill them with all sorts of things e.g buttercream, jam.. whatever you feel like.

I am so so glad I finally got these french macaroons. Now I can move on knowing I know how to make french macaroons.

Almond meal

2015-12-19T13:38:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone,

Its been a while since I last posted anything and its only because I have been crazy busy. I hope everyone is well? Anyways, this is just to share a simple procedure on how to make Almond meal because I am going to use it in my next blog post.

Here's how I started, I bought these almonds from a supermarket for 500 naira each. Now we are going to get rid of the skin for finer almond meal (This process is called blanching)

To blanch your almonds, Pour some water in a pot, bring it to a boil then add in your almonds for about a minute or minute and half.

Next you toss it into a sieve and run it under cold water, carefully peel the skin off almonds by holding one almond, the fat end in between you thumb and index finger, the with the pointy edge facing down, peel almonds.

Blanched almonds

Now to convert these blanched almonds to almond meal, dry them and throw them in the bowl of your food processor with the blade attachment fixed(A good blender would work fine too).

Pulse for some minutes till they look like they do in the picture below, this took about 5 minutes , then I sieved it with a medium mesh sieve, returned the lumps back into the food processor and pulsed for a few more minutes. I repeated this process till I got my fine almond meal

Beautiful right?... yeah I thought so too

Almonds can be gotten from pretty much any super market, feel free to try it out. Thanks for reading...Peace out guys

Blueberry muffins

2015-12-01T15:54:00.001-08:00

Hello,

Its been a while since NEPA has refused to give us light in Ikorodu plus the ongoing fuel scarcity.
Anyways after much wahala, we finally got fuel to power the generator. So I decided to play around with a blueberry muffin recipe from a cookbook I own, I added a couple of things to jazz it up a bit. This recipe is really easy to throw together and not overly sweet.

Here's a list of things you'll need

2 and 1/2 cups of flour
1/4 cup of white sugar
1/8 cup of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 cup of buttermilk or milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of freshly brewed coffee
2 eggs
1 cup of blueberries
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
60 grams of melted butter
1 teaspoon of salt
About a cup and half of streusel topping( recipe will be posted later, as it can be omitted)

Firstly, we classify the ingredients into two: Wet and Dry ingredients
DRY INGREDIENTS    WET INGREDIENTS
                                          Flour                                   Buttermilk/ milk
                                           White sugar                             Brown sugar
                                       Baking powder                          Melted butter
                                              Salt                                         Coffee
                                                                                            Lemon juice
                                                                                                Eggs
                                                                                         Vanilla extract
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Now add all the dry Ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together nicely

Crack both eggs in another bowl, beat slightly then add the rest of your wet ingredients, mix well.

Now add your wet ingredients into your dry and slowly mix them until well combined

Next, Fold your blueberries into your muffin batter

Line a muffin pan with 12 cupcake liners, then fill each one with about a tablespoon of streusel topping. (I will post the recipe for the streusel topping later, you can make your muffins without them or you can wait for the recipe for the streusel topping.)

Fill each liner with muffin batter and sprinkle on them the rest of the streusel topping

Bake for 20 minutes in the oven, then insert a skewer stick or toothpick, if it comes out clean, its done

This muffins are super easy, moist and very delicious. I'd love for you guys to try it out. Recipe makes 14 muffins.

I call it my Breaded potato balls

2015-11-24T12:10:00.001-08:00

Hello Everybody,

So I was in my room again, didn't know what to do today then I heard my mum yell "E ma je ki potato yi baje" which means don't let the potatoes go bad. so I went to the kitchen and found out that some of the sweet potatoes had gone bad. I didn't want the rest to go to waste so I started brainstorming. What do I do with these potatoes?
Then it hit me, I thought about what I did the other day, to boil the potatoes, peel and mash them, but this time pour the pepper into the mashed potatoes then add shredded chicken (instead of fish) , roll into small balls and fry them, easy right? wait until you actually start. Here's how I started

I got my potatoes, washed and boiled with a little salt until soft

Next I tossed them in a bowl of cold water and peeled them

Mashed them with a wooden spoon. A potato masher would have been a better option here but I don't have one..

Next I got some peppers and a small onion bulb, I used a hand grinder to get this consistency

I seasoned some chicken, boiled and shredded it

Then I added the pepper and chicken to the mashed potatoes and mixed it all together


I took a little chicken stock, added some salt and one stock cube because I didn't want to add too much liquid. I poured the stock into the mashed potatoes and mixed it all together.

My cousin suggested dissolving the seasoning into the chicken stock before adding to the mashed potatoes, thank God she was with me, I probably would have added the seasoning directly in the mashed potatoes and it wouldn't have mixed in properly and i would have ruined everything

Next I rolled them into balls and heated some oil in a pan and threw one in

This was where the problem started, after about one minute everything scattered in the oil and looked like this

Ew right?..sad

Then I remembered watching food network and hearing that eggs serve as binders, so I threw everything back in the bowl cracked in an egg and mixed it all together to see if would work. I forgot to take a picture after cracking in the egg.I fried another one, after about a minute and 30 seconds, it looked like this


It didn't really work...still sad

Then I had a light bulb moment..

I cracked two eggs in a bowl, poured some breadcrumbs in another, then seasoned them both. I dipped the potato balls in the eggs and rolled them in breadcrumbs

Then I fried them in a deep pan with oil just enough to cover the balls while frying. I fried them for about 3-4 minutes and they turned out perfect.

Aren't they pretty?

They turned out to be very delicious, my brothers ate them all

This was very challenging for me but I'm glad it turned out alright in the end.

Potato pottage...I think

2015-11-22T13:28:00.002-08:00

Hello again,

So, I was hungry today and after eating three bars of chocolate and realizing that i was still hungry, I decided to get off my bed to get something to eat. I found some sweet potatoes in the kitchen, I thought of frying them at first but I was feeling lazy to peel them. After staring at the potatoes for a while I suddenly remembered a lazy method my mum taught me a long time ago where I get to wash the potatoes, boil them before peeling them.
The next thing on my list was what to eat it with, I thought about frying eggs or making a sauce then it hit me, why not just make a sauce and combine it with the potatoes just like asaro(yam pottage) but kinda funkified not just because I'm making use of potatoes but because of the steps involved.

First step: Get your dirty potatoes

wash and boil them with a little salt until soft and a knife can go through each one conveniently

Peel the skin off while running under hot water, then place aside Careful! its hot

Get your tomatoes, peppers and onions

wash, throw in a blender and pulse for a few seconds

until it looks like this

shred some fish, any type of fish will work here

Get a pan to heat some oil in, add your blended pepper, cook for about three minutes, season it then throw in your fish

Throw in your potatoes and break apart: this depends on the consistency you want, if you want it creamy or chunky. Personally I prefer to go with a 50:50 consistency ratio so i added a little water to give me a little mashy effect.

Mix it all together on low heat, you can taste here and re-season to your liking and that's it

Simple lunch i threw together this afternoon.

I hope you guys enjoy this post and try it out because today's trial was a success and it was very delicious too.

My first blog POST. Yay!!

2015-11-22T03:26:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,
My name as you can all see is Anifowose Zainab and I decided to create this blog because I have a passion and I found it. It's COOKING and BAKING. I haven't decided which one I love more but I think it might be baking.
As a young girl, I grew up surrounded by a mum and aunts who love to either cook or bake so give me one reason why I wouldn't pick it up. My mum isn't really a great baker but she used to bake our birthday cakes and we would love them no matter how they turned out. I started cooking at a very young age, mostly because I have 4 brothers and most times my parents would leave them with me. (Yes we are 5 kids, and I am the first and
only girl). Anyways I used to cook for them and sometimes bake whatever I thought I had seen one of my aunts do. Cooking always turned out well but baking was always a mess, I never seemed to get it right but my family would devour it like it was the best they ever had. Anyways the long and short is that my family has been of great support to me on the journey I'm embarking on , I am learning everyday and I am proud to say that I am getting better everyday.
Back to the koko of the blog😐
I like to try my hands on different things as long as I have the money to buy the necessary ingredients required😐. So I would like to show you guys my trials and errors, successes and failures as I am trying to get better at doing what I love. Also I may not post great pictures😞 (a friend of mine has yabbed me plenty times coz of this) but I will try my best to post good enough pictures. Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading my blog. You guys shouldn't mind the look of the blog, will customize as time goes on.
P.s: we are all trying to learn this English so if you spot any gbagaun , please don't yab me . You can let me know, I am open to corrections.