Sunday's .............

A photo taken earlier this weekend of flowers in my parent's garden ....

Sorry no proper blog post from me today ............. have had a really lazy Sunday ... baby son woke me up around 7 am for a feed - I brought him in to bed with me & we both went back to sleep again until around 9 am ... him cuddled in my arms ... precious times ! My daughter went down to the beach with my Mum and the rest of the day has just sort of gone past in a lazy blur ... as any good Sunday should .....

Sunday's have always been my least favourite day of the week (too many memories of having to return to boarding school, or college, or leaving then-boyfriend's farm to head back to my job in town ... depending on what life stage I happened to be at at the time !) so I'm always glad when they're over & the new week has begun.

Hubby is heading back to our farm today - hooray ! He spent last night in a town called Morogoro. (Hasn't that got a lovely ring to it ?!) Have been keeping in touch via SMS and hope to talk to him on the 'phone properly tomorrow.

Instead of blogging, I'm off to bath/feed the kids so that I can have a nice, early, kid-free evening & watch 'Strictly Come Dancing' (which my Mum has got be hooked on !) .... enjoy the rest of your Sunday, everyone ;)

A Storm In A ..... Cupcake ?!?

Mt. Kilimanjaro ... Africa's highest mountain. Taken from the road to the farm a few months ago.

Phew. Okay. So in the almost 2 years since I started this blog, I have only had one negative comment (& a couple of sarcastic ones, which I chose not to publish !) For the most part, my blog has been wonderfully received by people all over the world – by people who’ve visited Tanzania, and those who haven’t – by people who live here today, and those who used to – by both expat’s and Tanzanian’s alike. So it came as a surprise this week, when I was accused (and by a Tanzanian, at that !) of lying and deceiving my readers ! The storm in a teacup ? An innocent comment made in my “Easy Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting” post about the quality of flour and sugar I bake with. (If you wish to, you can read the post and resulting comments over here.)

Long time readers of my blog will know how untrue these accusations are and how much I love my adopted country of Tanzania and her wonderful people and how I continually promote the country, local products and tourism. Which is why the comment’s made even less sense to me !

I receive many emails from blog readers who wish to visit Africa, and who have perhaps been in two minds about visiting Tanzania (or any other African country, for that matter, as Africa is ‘the big unknown’ to many people), but who upon researching the country have come upon my blog through a Google search or similar, and have been so impressed with what Tanzania has to offer, and being able to see a ‘true’ picture of the place from someone who actually lives there, that they’ve decided to come and visit !

There’ve also been a few people who’ve been offered jobs here or in other African countries, who say that reading my blog (& corresponding with me ‘behind-the-scenes’) has swayed their decision to choose Tanzania over another location ! And those people come here, spend money, employ people and (hopefully) add something back before they leave …. so, in a roundabout sort of way, my blog has helped contribute to that.

After publishing, and responding, to the negative comments on the post, I have since received more ‘choice words’ via Blogger comments from the same person, which I have chosen not to publish as I don’t want to waste any more time or energy on this person (who seems to be quite bitter & who obviously has issues in their own life – my friend Jo has a great expression “Hurt people …. hurt people” … so true and I actually feel sorry for this person at the end of the day – imagine living your life with so much anger inside you ? I think the issue here probably goes far deeper than ‘insects in flour’ !)

I have a tracking tool on this blog (which I never use, unless in a case like this !) so I know exactly where this person is posting from, as well as where else they have posted about my blog on the internet (a nasty comment on another blog, including a link back to my blog to alert people – mostly fellow Tanzanian’s – to the post) and the funniest thing of all, is that this person has infact done me a favour as because of this link on another site, they’ve sent some lovely traffic my way and caused my blog to have close on 1100 ‘hits’ yesterday alone ………… with more new visitors as we speak !

Having my cake and eating it too ? Hold the multi coloured sprinkles, please – I’ll have mine with a sprinkling of insects on the top instead ;)

Easy Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

I let my daughter choose which type of topping she'd like to make with me for these easy vanilla cupcakes - and she chose chocolate ... mmmmm !

Last week I baked some cupcakes for tea. It’s always a novelty for me baking in South Africa as the flour and sugar is so clean here and only ever has to be sifted once. At home in Tanzania, we usually have to pick tiny stones out of the sugar & sift the flour at least twice to get rid of all the ‘dudu’s’ ('dudu's' are insects in the local Swahili language). All the flour I buy contains small insects and/or funny bits and pieces of unknown animal life ! “OH YUCK !” I hear you say …………. but ‘tis the truth & if a few insects happen to miss my beady eye and fall through the sieve then I reckon it’s all baked at a high temperature so should kill all the germs anyway. (And none of us have ever got sick or anything so it must be okay !)

Another novelty – being able to buy and bake with Vanilla Extract. Not that cheap 'n nasty essence-y stuff. Not to mention real, fresh butter. Ahhhh ….. Also, being able to lick the batter straight from the bowl as the eggs here are pasteurized. How daring ! I don’t risk this at home (although my daughter has - and survived to tell the tale !) unless I’m in a particularly daring mood that day (ha ha – the daredevil life of a farmer’s wife, ‘eh ?!)

So – here then is a recipe for the cupcakes I made here last week. (And yes, I did lick the bowl … and the spoons, too !) -:


Easy Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

1 ½ cups Cake Flour
¾ cup White Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
½ cup Milk (I used Skim Milk)
½ cup Sunflower Oil
2 Eggs, beaten
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Butter or Margarine for greasing the cake cups/pans

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder & salt together. Make a well in the centre and add the milk, oil, beaten eggs and vanilla extract. Blend all together and beat for a few minutes (I used a hand held whisk) until well blended and creamy. Place mixture into lightly greased cake or muffin cups, and bake at 180’C/350’C/Gas Mark 4 for 12-15 mins until a skewer inserted in the middle of one of the cupcakes comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack before icing them with a topping of your choice. Makes about 20 cupcakes.

For the Frosting:
Butter, softened
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
Icing Sugar
Drinking Chocolate Powder (like sweetened Cocoa Powder)
Dash of Milk
Multi Coloured Sprinkles

I’m afraid I didn’t weigh or measure the ingredients for this …. I placed a few heaped tablespoons of butter into a glass bowl, added the Vanilla Extract & about ½ a box of sifted Icing Sugar (250 gm/1 cup or so ?) to this, along with 2-3 tablespoons of drinking chocolate powder and then I beat it well (again, by hand as I far prefer this method to the electric kind !), adding a dash of milk (rather than more butter !) to moisten it a little. I smothered it over the cupcakes & my daughter and I had great fun sprinkling the decorations over the top.