The perfect buttercream is so simple, yet so elusive.  It relys on fresh, really good quality butter and perfect proportions.

Allow:

• 3 cups of icing sugar for every
• 80g of butter

Take the chilled butter out of the fridge and weigh your 80g.  Dice it and allow 5-10 minutes for it to soften to room temperature.  You don’t want it too warm as beating it will generate additional heat.

Cream the butter with a little icing sugar in the bowl of a stand beater, or in a large bowl with a hand beater.  The butter may not seem enough to justify a large bowl, but adding icing sugar will cloak you, your mixer and your kitchen in a mushroom cloud of fine powder, so a large deep-sided bowl will help to minimize the fallout.

Keep adding icing sugar and when the butter and sugar resembles crumbs you can add

• 1 teaspoon of essence and
• up to 3 Tablespoons of milk, lemon juice or fresh squeezed orange

Don’t mix the milk and juice as it will curdle.  Just one or the other.  Try to match it to your essence, vanilla with milk, lemon oil with lemon juice, rose essence with milk, etc.

This should make the consistency easier to work with and pull it together.  Now you just have to add the rest of the icing sugar and keep whipping until the flavours meld and the consistency is light, fluffy and spreadable.

Cakes, and cupcakes should be completely cooled before adding icing, and buttercream can be kept stored in the fridge.  Just remember to let it come to room temp before you try icing anything.

Colour is really important here.  You can go with the plain colouring and just add a little grated zest and garnish.  Or you can bring out your wild side.  I use the same gel colourants I use when I paint celebration cakes.  A drop is all it takes, and I often divide the mix into 3, colouring each lot separately.  I am not afraid of bright kitsch colours, but if remember that the colour will continue to develop after mixing, start off slow with the colour, as you can always add to it later.  Have fun

• Mound 300g of pasta flour on your counter top (or in the bowl of your kitchenaid).
• Add the finely grated zest of one organic lemon (optional)
• Make a well in the centre and add 3 lightly beaten large freerange eggs
• Add a sachet of squid ink (or up to two if you want your pasta very dark, but you may need to add a little more flour to your dough).
• Mix into a dough and knead until smooth and elastic (use the flat beater until the dough comes together then switch to the dough hook if you are using a kitchenaid).
• Cut into quarters and leave 3 quarters under a damp cloth whilst you work with the other quarter.
• Flatten out the quarter and run it through your pasta rollers on the lowest (1) setting several times (folding it over in 3 like a letter each time)
• When the dough starts to feel lovely and supple, switch the rollers to the next setting and run through twice.
• Keep going making the settings progressively thinner until you have fairly thin sheet of pasta.
• I usually go to setting 6, or 8 if I am making ravioli
• Now you can cut the pasta into smaller sheets to use for cannelloni, or lasagne
• Or run it through your pasta cutters.  I used the linguine setting for fine noodles.
• Fresh pasta only takes about 3 minutes to cook in boiling water.
• Store in sheets sprinkled with semolina, then wrapped and frozen.  Or do the same with nests of noodles.
• Make sure you brush all the semolina off before cooking.
  

Cream cheese, like Ricotta is a dead easy thing to make. I generally make my own yoghurt anyway, especially if I have a surplus of milk, and this cream cheese was made with a surplus of yoghurt.

• Line a sieve or perforated container with a piece of muslin.
• Mix the juice of 1 large lemon into 500ml of yoghurt
• I added two teaspoons of Orange Flower Water and the finely grated zest of the lemon too.
• Twist the top of the muslin (cheesecloth) together and weight down with a side plate.
• Stand the sieve in a bowl or container large enough to ensure that the bottom of the sieve does not touch the bottom of the bowl.
• Cover with a lid or foil so that the cream cheese doesn’t pick up fridge odours, and leave in the fridge to drain for 24 hours, pouring off any excess whey when it becomes too full.
• Once all the whey is drained you can compact your cheese slightly by twisting the muslin round.
• Unmould into a bowl, cover and keep in the refrigerator.
• Use within a week.

If you are wanting to use your cream cheese for savoury dishes you can add seasoning when you add the lemon juice, instead of the orange blossom water.

Thank you for trying a Vanielje Kitchen recipe.

I hope it fed you mind, body and soul.

• Peel one large clove of garlic and bash it in a mortar and pestle with a little maldon salt until it is a smooth paste.
• Crack a large free range organic egg into a blender.
• Add 1 teaspoon of maldon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of mustard powder
• and the garlic paste.
• Blitz it all together in the blender, then with the motor still running slowly trickle in 175ml of sunflower oil through the feeder in the lid.
• The egg and oil will start to emulsify and thicken
• When all the oil has been added, throw in a handful of fresh basil leaves and pulse briefly.
• Season the aioli with lemon juice and black pepper to taste.

Use for grilled fish or lamb, asparagus, grilled tomatoes…..

Making your own pasta is really quick and easy and you can’t beat it for thinks like tagliatelle, cannelloni and lasagne.  I used to make it often even before one of my favourite people (and the person who taught me to make pasta) gifted me with the pasta rollers and cutters for my kitchenaid.

My point being, that this friend taught me to make pasta with no special gadgets or equipment save his counter top and an old Crystal bottle that he stored on top of his kitchen cabinet.

The story goes that his mom got the pasta roller in the divorce and it was his dad who taught him to make pasta…so..ya know…

I still use his basic pasta recipe, adding and subtracting ingredients occasionally, such as swapping some of the eggs for spinach, squid ink, or in this case beetroot.

It’s worth taking the time to find Italian Tipo 00 (very fine) pasta flour, or something like Doves Farm organic pasta flour.

• trim 3 medium beetroot about an inch above the bottom of the stalks.  If you cut into the root the colour will all bleed out during cooking.
• Put in cold water and bring to the boil, boiling until the beetroots are soft.
• Run under cold running water and peel off the skins.
• Puree in a blender and let cool.
  
• Mound 300g of pasta flour on your counter top (or in the bowl of your kitchenaid).
• Make a well in the centre and add 3 lightly beaten eggs
• Add 3 large tablespoons of beetroot puree.
• Mix into a dough and knead until smooth and elastic (use the flat beater until the dough comes together then switch to the dough hook if you are using a kitchenaid).
• Cut into quarters and leave 3 quarters under a damp cloth whilst you work with the other quarter.
• Flatten out the quarter and run it through your pasta rollers on the lowest (1) setting several times (folding it over in 3 like a letter each time)
• When the dough starts to feel lovely and supple, switch the rollers to the next setting and run through twice.
• Keep going making the settings progressively thinner until you have fairly thin sheet of pasta.
• I usually go to setting 6, or 8 if I am making ravioli
• Now you can cut the pasta into smaller sheets to use for cannelloni, or lasagne
• Or run it through your pasta cutters.  I used the linguine setting for fine noodles.
• Fresh pasta only takes about 3 minutes to cook in boiling water.
• If you don’t want the colour to fade during cooking, add a little more beetroot puree to the pasta cooking water.
• Store in sheets sprinkled with semolina, then wrapped and frozen.  Or do the same with ‘nests’ of noodles.
• Make sure you brush all the semolina off before cooking.