My mother: Pure passion and inspiration

In this post I will talk about my mother, my mentor and source for inspiration. Her lessons in the kitchen at home are my main reason for being a chef: I took them through the years building them into a passion.

Learning recipes from my mother that she learnt from her family members has been the first step I took into doing pastry at home. Let me tell you more about her. When she grew up, cooking was the first thing her mother told her as in our culture is common that woman learn to cook at a tender age. Through the years this has been very useful, I remember when I was little she used to  made extra cash and baked on weekends. The thing I remember the most is her baking her famous "Quins Cake", very popular in South Africa, I start helping her doing her mise en place without even knowing what was that: breaking eggs and counting the cups of flour for her while she was adding the baking powder and getting the baking trays ready by basing them with butter. 

When I bake with my mother I feel good, with her the book of learn is never closed, even after years of cooking she still has a trick up her sleeve. And I'm still learning from her while I travel the world, at time I even call her to ask for help or tips. When baking with her, I love the fact that she still bakes without a recipe book, all she knows is in her head till today.

So this time I wanna show you the "Quins Cake" recipe. As you can see in the pictures bellow, the mix looks sweet because of the food coloring, but the taste is not to sweet they are soft and good with tea. Love to eat them for breakfast cause they are not too heavy. 

When baking I always recommend to read the whole recipe first, then check if you have all the ingredients, weight and measure everything, finally set your oven temperature, and start with the dough. The procedure is really simple, so if you wanna start baking, this is a recipe for beginners. 

For this recipe you will need:

500 g Margarine
500 g Sugar
6 Whole eggs
2 ml Egg yellow food coloring
3 ml vanilla essence
30 g baking powder
759 g All Purpose flour
A little milk for mixing

First, cream the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy. Then beat in eggs two at a time and add coloring and essence.

Sift the flour and banking powder together and work into creamed mixture, adding a little milk if necessary. The mixture should be a little rubbery. Add more flour if necessary. 

Finally, spoon the mixture into paper cups. 

 

Bake them at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 to 20 minutes. Take them out, let them cool down and enjoy.

Hope you enjoyed baking this cake and making new memories in your kitchen. My best when I was little are there, just playing near the sugar jar and the mixed dough.

Kabelo "Superkabza" Kalebe