Custard slices

A recipe I got from Andre's mom. One of the few sweet things I make that he will eat. 

Ingredients:

1 tin condensed milk

lemon juice

2 heaped tablespoons custard powder

about 500 ml milk

2 heaped teaspoons sugar

Nice biscuits (or Tennis biscuits if you're in SA)

Here's how to make it:

1. Pour condensed milk into a bowl and fold in lemon juice until the condensed milk becomes quite thick. Next time I will measure how much lemon juice I used. You will need a few tablespoons full. It doesn't need to be solid. Just a bit thicker than when you poured it from the tin.

2. Place a layer of biscuits in the bottom of the dish and around the sides. I used a smallish dish. Let me go measure it... it's 22cm x 17cm.  One packet of biscuits was just enough for this size of dish. You will need a bit more if your dish is any bigger.)

3. Mix custard powder and sugar with a little bit of milk.

4. Heat 500ml milk. Stir in custard mixture and keep stirring until boiling.

5. Pour warm custard over biscuits in dish.

6. Pack another layer of biscuits over the custard, keeping aside one biscuit.

7. Pour condensed milk mixture over the second layer of biscuits and crumble the one biscuit you kept aside over the top.

8. Refrigerate until set.

Apple Crisp - This is a good one!

No pictures of this one as it isn't a pretty looking dessert in the dish. You could dress it up in a bowl with some ice cream. I've already had a taste of it now before dinner and it's so good. It can do with some cream or vanilla ice cream.

I got the recipe here, but will type it out simpler the way I like it.

Peel and core 5 - 8 apples and slice into 1/2 to 1/4 inch thick slices. Place in oven dish.
Add:
3/4 cups sugar (I only used half that and will leave the sugar in the apple mixture out completely next time.)
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Mix well.

In a separate bowl mix the topping:
3/4 cup oats
3/4 cup sugar (again I used less or it will be way too sweet)
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
optional: shopped nuts (I didn't add this as I don't like nuts much.)

Spread topping over apple mixture and bake at 190C for 45 minutes.

Have a taste test straight away then serve to your guests with ice cream or cream!

Apple and Sparkling Cider Sorbet

I've been trying out new recipes and here's one of them: it's a grown-up sorbet and deliciously refreshing. You really get that fresh apple taste and just a bit of the apple cider taste in there too. Here's the recipe:


1 kg apples
2 cups sparkling dry apple cider
1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cups water
1/2 whole lemon, juiced (or to taste)

Quarter the apples and remove cores. Don't peel them. Cut into chunks.
Combine cider, sugar and water and bring to boil.
Add apples, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 5 min.
Turn off the heat and leave to cool to room temperature for about 3 hours.

Strain the apples, pressing firmly to extract the pulp and all the liquid. I placed a colander over a large bowl and mushed it around with a spoon.
Discard the peels.
Add lemon juice to taste.

Refrigerate overnight, then freeze. You can use an ice cream maker, but I don't have one so I just put it into a tub in the freezer, stirring after an hour or two.

Homemade apple juice

I just cooked some apples to make apple juice. We picked so many over the weekend and I don't want them to go to waste.

The first time I made apple juice I followed this recipe: Apple Juice Recipe

Here's what I did tonight though, a bit simpler than on the site above. I basically just quartered all the apples. Place the chopped apples (with peels and cores) in a large pot. Add about a 1/4 cup water or more and simmer until soft. Pour into strainer over bowl and leave to strain for about 2 hours. Then help it along by pushing the soft apples around with a spoon to get as much juice/ pulp out as possible. Discard peels.

The first time I added a lot more water and it was still very thick. When I drink it I still add some water. Sparkling water is nice to thin it with. I happened to have a slightly flavoured sparkling water here which was really good with the apple juice.

This time I decided to not add much water and instead it will be like a concentrate. Takes up less space in the fridge and I'll just add water to some of the apple juice in a glass as needed. 

This is a cloudy apple juice and has some bits in too. If you want it clear without any bits you'll have to strain like mad. And you'll need something finer than just a colander which I used. I don't like to go to too much trouble when I cook. The simpler and quicker the better.