Easy Vanilla Meringues

Easy Vanilla Meringues - enjoy them any way you like !

Easy to make, fat free (but please note - not calorie free !) these meringues are simple yet delicious. Serve them with fresh or tinned fruit, cream, ice cream or 'Homemade Raspberry Sauce' – or simply eat them on their own with a nice cuppa tea ;)

I’ve posted a couple of meringue recipes on the blog in the past. Click here for one of them and here for my 'Pink Meringue Cups' recipe.

Easy Vanilla Meringues

2 cups white Sugar (we mostly get brown sugar here, so I use brown)
4 tbsp hot Water
4 Egg Whites
2 tsps Vinegar (I use white grape vinegar)
1 – ½ tsps Vanilla Extract
2 tsp Baking Powder

Place all the ingredients, except for the baking powder, into a large bowl & beat with an electric mixer for around 10 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks form (don’t worry if your mixture looks sloppy for quite a while as you beat it – it will suddenly thicken up). Then, fold in the baking powder. Place teaspoons full onto a lightly greased baking sheet and bake at Gas mark 3/160'C/325'F for +- 40 minutes until done. Makes around 40 meringues.

Chocolate & Peanut Butter Crispy Treats

Who can resist the delicious combination of chocolate and peanut butter used to make these tasty treats ?

There’s something delicious about the combination of chocolate and peanut butter – don’t you agree ?! (However having said that, if you are not fond of the taste of peanut butter or are allergic to peanuts, then you can just leave it out of this recipe.)

These Chocolate & Peanut Butter Crispy Treats are an adaptation of ‘Mum’s Zimbabwean Fridge Cake’ recipe which you’ll find over here. They’re quick to make and kids enjoy helping with them, too. I think they’d go down well at a child’s birthday party aswell -:


Chocolate & Peanut Butter Crispy Treats

125 gm Butter
2 tbsp Sugar
2 tbsp Syrup
2 tbsp Chocolate Drinking Powder
1 tbsp powdered Milk
2 heaped tbsp Crunchy Peanut Butter (you can also use smooth Peanut Butter)
2 cups Puffed Rice Breakfast Cereal

Melt the butter, sugar and syrup together in a small saucepan. Then add the chocolate drinking powder and powdered milk, and stir to blend well. Remove from the heat & stir the peanut butter in – blend until melted. Add the puffed rice breakfast cereal and mix everything together well. Drop heaped teaspoons full into paper cup cases, and refrigerate for a few hours until firm. Makes around 15.

Meringues - A Great Tea Time (or anytime !) Treat ....

My daughter always has great fun helping me to decorate the meringues before we bake them

Light and airy, fat free and easy to make, meringues are always a hit with both children and adults alike.

You can serve them with afternoon tea, or accompanied by freshly whipped cream (or ice cream) and fresh fruit for a more decadent dessert. They’re also great to pack into school lunch boxes or to take with you when you’re going on a long car journey -:


Meringues (taken from the book “Cook and Enjoy It” by S.J.A. de Villiers)

3 Egg Whites
pinch of Salt
¼ tsp Cream of Tartar
1 cup Castor Sugar (very fine sugar)
½ tsp Vanilla Essence

Preheat the oven to 120’C-130’C/250’F/Gas Mark 1-2. Beat the egg whites with the salt & cream of tartar until stiff but not dry. Add the castor sugar by the spoonful, beating well after each addition and adding the vanilla essence just before the last 2 spoonfuls of sugar. Line a baking sheet with buttered paper. Shape the meringues on the paper with a spoon, or use an icing bag & tube* Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour and lift the meringues off the paper with a spatula.

Variations : Add chopped nuts, or chopped dates & nuts to the mixture before shaping the meringues on the baking sheet.

*I like to place spoonfuls of the meringue mixture into lightly buttered paper cup cases, & decorate them with coloured sprinkles etc before baking.

Iced Biscuits Decorated With Sweets - A Great Activity For Kids !

I decorated these biscuits with face and insect/bug designs, but you could create anything that takes your fancy !

This is not so much a recipe as an idea, because you really can let your creative streak run wild with this one ! Kids absolutely love both making and eating these, and it’s easy for very young children to participate, too.

I made these for my daughter’s 4th birthday party last year, and they were a hit. I used Marie Biscuits (which are like a plain tea biscuit) but you could use any similar round, plain biscuit as your base.

Firstly, I made a large bowl of fairly stiff icing (frosting) with icing sugar and water, then split it into 2 smaller bowls and coloured the icing in one bowl with a few drops of red food colouring, and the icing in the other bowl with a few drops of blue food colouring.

I then iced the tops of each biscuit and whilst the icing was still wet, I decorated the tops with a selection of different sweets (candies) to make faces or insect/bug designs on the top. (Dog and cat faces would also work well).

I bought a selection of sweets – whatever I could find in our shops here - which included jelly sweets in different sizes, chocolate candies, sour worms, liquorice and marshmallows. Some I cut into shapes or different sizes, but most I used whole.

These are so simple to make and would go down well not only at a child’s birthday party, but also at a school fete or even as a basic school or extra mural cooking activity. You could also include this as an activity at your child’s next birthday party – set up a table with pre-iced biscuits and bowls of different sweets, and let each child decorate (& eat !) his/her own biscuit.

Christmas Cake Icing - Without the Marzipan !

Even without using Marzipan, this Christmas cake icing still tastes great & is so simple to make, too !

Well I’m sure that everyone is all “Christmas food-ed out” at the moment if you are anything like me ! (Why is it that we always overindulge so much over the festive season, I wonder ?!)

For this reason I did not post a recipe yesterday, and I thought that for today’s post I would simply just show you a photo of my Christmas cake (you can see the recipe for that over here) since it has been iced. (Well, there is not much left of it now !)

We aren’t mad about marzipan in this family, and seeing as we can’t get it here in Tanzania (well, not easily at least), I do a ‘marzipan free’ icing for my Christmas cake each year.

For this icing I use a 500 gm bag of icing sugar which I sift well, then I add tablespoon by tablespoon of cold water very slowly so that I can control just how thick the icing sugar gets. The trick here is to make the icing as thick as possible, so I only use around 5 to 6 tablespoons of water to achieve the desired consistency.

Once I have it to the desired thickness (a very stiff paste) I simply pour the whole lot on to the top of the cake and wait for it to slowly drip down the sides of the cake. To speed this process along I use a flat bladed knife dipped in cold water to spread and smooth it. Once the icing begins to set I then wrap a ribbon (this one is made from fabric) around the side of the cake – one which has been cut to size before icing. I then decorate the top with a selection of plastic Christmas cake decorations which I’ve had for years.

Important Note : Usually, just before the icing sets & I wrap the ribbon around the cake, I take a dry flat bladed knife and press it quickly (blade side down) all the way around the cake – placing the knife on one spot, then quickly lifting it and placing it on another so that it forms a rough, peaky surface. This looks much nicer than the smooth, shiny surface above. I forgot to do it this year (!!) and by the time I remembered, the icing was too dry and it wouldn’t work. My daughter was helping me to ice the cake this year, I was trying to get it done as quickly as possible as her little fingers were all over the cake, poking and proding and … well you get the picture ! I was trying to hurry things along & get on to the next task, & forgot about the last stage …. I’m sure that many Mum’s out there can relate to this ;)

Best Ever Christmas Mince Pies (with a boozy twist !)

' Frosty the Snowman' stands guard over the mince pies !

I like to make festive star shapes for the tops of my mince pies, but you could just as easily make plain tops for them

I love mince pies – for me, they taste of Christmas ! Now is usually around the time I start making mine – a week or so before Christmas – so that we can eat them fresh. Traditionally we eat these on Christmas morning with tea as we open our presents, and we always leave a few out for Father Christmas on Christmas Eve *wink wink*

There was a time when we could not buy jars of fruit mince meat here, one year I even asked one of our local shops months beforehand to order some in for me (which they very kindly did !) but now each year around Christmastime I see it appearing more and more on our shelves here. I suppose I could always make my own, but when the jarred stuff is so good and time is limited, I take the easy option !

For me, the most important part of the mince pie is the pastry/crust. Soft, golden and buttery – it should almost melt in your mouth … mmmmm ! The crust recipe for the mince pies below is all that and more - but you must use real butter for this as margarine is a poor alternative & won’t produce the same results.

A trick I learnt a few years ago from my dear friend J. (who’s British but has lived in East Africa for most of her life, and makes the most divine mince pies herself) is to add around 3 tablespoons of brandy to the fruit mince meat & stir well to blend before adding it as a filling – this definitely ‘ups’ the flavour & I guarantee you’ll never go back to plain old alcohol free fruit mince again !

Here’s the mince pie recipe which I use year after year -:


Mince Pies (from “Creating a Traditional Christmas” published by New Holland)

280 gm Plain Flour
½ tsp Salt
180 gm cold Butter (salted)
1 tbsp Caster Sugar (very fine Sugar) – plus extra for dusting
1 Egg, separated
4 tsp iced Water
1 tsp Lemon juice
440 gm jar Fruit Mincemeat (I stir +- 3 tbsp brandy into mine first)

Sift flour & salt together. Cut butter into small pieces & rub into flour with fingertips until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in the sugar. Mix the egg yolk, iced water & lemon juice together & add to dry ingredients – blend to make a stiff dough. Knead well. Wrap dough in plastic wrap & chill in refrigerator for around 1 hour.

Roll out the pastry to a thickness of 3 mm. Cut rounds to fit base of patty pans or bun tins. Cut the same number of smaller circles to form the lids for the mince pies (I cut small star shapes to make my lids). Place 1 tsp fruit mincemeat on the base of each pastry round. Dampen pastry edge with water, cover with pastry lid, & seal. Prick holes in the lid with a fork or make a small incision with the tip of a knife. Brush with lightly beaten egg white or iced water.

Bake in preheated oven at 200’C/400’F/Gas Mark 6 for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Sprinkle with caster sugar while still warm.

Festive Chocolate Crunchies

You could make these Festive Chocolate Crunchies with either rice krispy cereal, or cornflakes

When I was a little girl growing up in Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe), each year my Mum would hold a birthday party for me at our house in Salisbury (present day Harare). In those days, due to sanctions, we couldn’t get much in the country so everything had to be handmade. No shop bought birthday cakes and preservative laden sweets, biscuits and chips (even decent chocolate was hard to come by), everything (including all the decorations) was made for children’s parties by mother’s, grandmother’s and aunts.

My beloved Auntie Rosalie (my Dad’s brother’s wife) used to help my Mum to make all sorts of treats for the special day. This recipe is similar to one of the things she used to make – only she used cornflakes instead. Even eating these today, takes me right back to the carefree days of my childhood – especially since my daughter loves making them (& eating them !) with me. These were another of the party foods I made for her recent birthday party -:


Festive Chocolate Crunchies

224 gm Milk Chocolate
7 tbsp Margarine
8 tbsp Golden Syrup (corn syrup)

5 to 6 cups rice krispy cereal (or cornflakes)
Rainbow coloured sugar sprinkles to decorate

Place the chocolate, margarine & syrup in a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat until melted, stirring to blend well as it heats. Remove from the heat & add the cereal, stirring until the chocolate mix has covered it all. Drop spoonfuls into lightly greased paper cups and sprinkle the rainbow sprinkles over each one to decorate. Place in the fridge overnight to harden. These should be eaten within 2 days, else they begin to soften & spoil.

Pink Meringue Cups

I thought that these meringue cups would look lovely piled high in different colours like blue, green & pink for a child's birthday party

I made these meringue cups with my daughter over the weekend. The mixture was a little runny so instead of making traditional meringues (which would have spread all over the tray as they baked !) I put the mixture into medium sized paper cake cup cases (a recent ‘find’ when I was in the big city !)

The result was a meringue that looked like a cake – delicious ! I love my meringues slightly cracked on the top, crispy on the outside & all gooey on the inside - and these were exactly that.

My daughter’s 4th birthday is coming up in a little over 2 month’s time & I thought that making these in different colours, garnished with fresh fruit in-between and piled up high on a plate would go down a treat with the kids at the party. These would also make great lunchbox fillers as the cup case helps to hold them together and they don’t crumble & break as much as meringues usually do.

Here is the recipe -:

Pink Meringue Cups

4 medium Egg Whites
pinch of Salt
pinch of Baking Powder
1 cup Caster Sugar
Drop of red Food Colouring

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff and soft peaks form. Add the salt & baking powder and continue to beat. Then add the caster sugar a little at a time, folding in & continuing to beat. Add the food colouring and mix to blend. Place spoonfuls of the mixture into lightly greased (medium sized) paper cup cases & bake at Gas Mark 1/120’C/250’F for around 45 minutes until they have risen & are slightly browned with cracked tops.

Chocolate Fudge Icing (Frosting) For Cake

This Chocolate Fudge Icing (Frosting) is a 'must try' !

Have you noticed that a lot of my recent recipe posts have been for desserts and baked goods ? Mmmm … I wonder why that is ? I seem to be in “sweet tooth mode” at the moment. Which is not that good for the waistline ! (Although I assure you, I don’t eat everything you see on this blog *wink wink*)

Anyway, this past weekend I made a chocolate cake (you can see my recipe for that over here) and when I went to ice it, I realized that what I’d thought was icing sugar when I bought it, was actually caster sugar. Oh no ! Miles from the shops, I wasn’t sure what to do when I suddenly remembered a great Chocolate Fudge Icing (Frosting) recipe I’d last used years ago when we had friends with young children staying with us on our old farm for part of the Christmas holidays. They had loved making - and eating – this icing with me so I dug it out and made it with my daughter. It was delicious !

This icing is more like a thick topping. It’s unusual in that it has a hard, crunchy, fudgy texture (which actually helps to retain the moisture in the cake, especially if it lasts more than a couple of days !) that almost forms a ‘shell’ around the cake. It’s also a real hit with kids.

Chocolate Fudge Icing (Frosting)

2 cups Caster Sugar
½ cup unsweetened Cocoa Powder
6 tbsp Margarine (or Butter)
2 tbsp Syrup (I’ve used honey before & this works too)
2 tsp Vanilla Essence

Mix all together (except for the Vanilla essence) in a small cooking pot & bring to the boil whilst stirring. Simmer for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and add the Vanilla essence. Mix to blend, allow to cool slightly & then spread quickly over the cake as it will begin to harden.

Quick & Easy Rice Krispie Treats

Quick & easy to make, these Rice Krispie treats were eaten faster than you could say "Snap ... Crackle ... Pop !"

I love spending time in the kitchen with my daughter. (Okay, not all the time, but most of the time as it can get quite messy and chaotic if she’s in there ‘helping’ me out too often, as any Mum can relate to, I’m sure !)

On Saturday afternoon we decided to make something quick, easy and fun and I found this old recipe of mine for Rice Krispie Treats. I cannot remember where I got this recipe from, as it was just hand written into one of my recipe books (I have several which contain hand written, typed and printed recipes along with recipes torn out of magazines or newspapers and not all of them have been stuck into the book/s yet !) I think that the recipe probably originated from the Kellog’s website (and to a time when I was printer cartridge-less and stuck on our old farm which was a good day’s drive to the closest shop selling them – hence the hand written recipe !)

Whenever I make this recipe with my daughter, she always seems quite dismayed once the marshmallows start to melt “But WHERE are they going, Mummy ?!” and once they have melted completely “Oh Mummy, WHERE have the marshmallows gone ? They’ve GONE – ALL GONE !”

We enjoyed these out on the veranda with a nice cuppa tea after they’d set (which doesn’t take long) … with several dogs begging at our feet …

Rice Krispie Treats

2 tbsp Butter
1 x 150 gm packet Marshmallows (I used a pink/white mix)
3 cups Rice Krispies

Lightly grease a baking tray. Melt the butter & add the marshmallows, stirring until melted & then add the Rice Krispies. Working quickly, transfer the mixture to the greased baking tray and quickly press into the tray & flatten with buttered hands (which makes the mixture much easier to handle !). Cut/mark into squares & leave in the fridge to set.