Chocolate cake!!! - and my first layered one too... #allsmiles

Allo, allo, allo!

Been a while and hope we're good? I am! The very fact that I can type this, makes all things bright for me... lol...

So recently, I wanted to try out this filled cupcake recipe, and then I got distracted by the recipe below found on my baking brick of Stalk margarine...

So in my post on Surf cakes, under the Butter vs Margarine section, I explained why I loved Stork margarine as a butter alternative. I hope you find it useful.

So back to my story, in the end, I postponed my pursuit of filled cupcakes till later and went on a search for chocolate powder 😃!!

Three shops and a zillion steps later, I was the proud owner of these beauties and was ready to bake my first layered cake!!! Whoop whoop!!!

I am honestly getting used to these photo stories, so as with some posts, I'll chip in where I deviated. I hope you have fun reading, and baking it if you do try... I did!!! Lol...

Ready? Let's go!!

The cake itself 

Just an FYI, I had never baked a cake from creaming the eggs and sugar first. I always started with sugar and fat, eggs came after that... so this method is my first, and actually a pretty good first, surprisingly... lol... 

So this is one thing I love about baking, exact measurements often make me think of mathematical story problems from Primary school. We'll be using subtractions a lot in this recipe, due to the tools I had. Here, we need to find the weight of the empty bowl before we weigh out our sugar.

Here, I used half the sugar the recipe specified. More a personal choice than a technical reason, I tend to find the sugar specified in almost all recipes I discovef too sweet... in fact damagingly sweet... lol... emphasis on my personal opinion. So as implied in my post on Surf cakes, under the Sugar section, I try to reduce all sugar quantities in recipes I find. As a general rule, I either use half or two-thirds of sugar required. Often half works well with double the salt. #hackalert

Now a tip here, when the recipe says fluffy, it actually means fluffy... lol... not just lighter and creamier... fluffy... till your batter reminds you of light clouds in the sky, or whipped cream, or the word 'fluffy' itself... don't give up, don't lose hope, keep whisking!!! You're closer now than 30 seconds ago 😃😃

After measuring out 4 scoops of my 1/2 cup of flour to get 500ml of flour, I had to figure out how to get that weird 20ml in the recipe. Weird because I had no 20ml cup!!!

In walk my 80ml cup, 30ml cup and basic arithmetic to tackle our joyous 'story problem!'

Before I continue, in case I've lost you on the 'story problem' from Primary school, let me chip this in:

When I was in Class 3 or so, we started using maths to solve simple daily problems. We called them story problems, an everyday problem like measuring up our sugar accurately on the scale up there, or the measuring the flour as follows. From them, we needed to figure out what our variables were, our constants, what was needed, what the bottle neck was and then work out an equation that gave us the answer!! Whoop whoop!! I loved them... and still do... so I actually get excited when I need to create a formula from simple things like this. I understand if you may not relate, I'm pretty excited about numbers, math and algorithm, but before I bore you further (if you aren't excited), do forgive, I digress... 🙈🙈

So how do we get the needed 20ml of flour? 80ml minus 30ml minus another 30ml gives us 20ml!!! Whoop whoop!! Doesn't that feel smart 😃 If it doesn't, no fears, I love to celebrate so at this juncture I'll do a little dance to that... heeheheee 💃💃💃

Let's continue with the picture story, shall we?

Another moment of dancing for the smarty pants, we just got the 20ml... lololll.... 💃😂💃

This is our salt... doubled... actually 150% more in this case... a teaspoon is 5ml, the recipe said 2ml... #hackalert

Pleeeeeease use butter NOT margarine for this recipe. Don't substitute unless you can confirm it's a butter alternative like Stork margarine. Margarine is awesome for dense and heavy pastries & cakes... not the light and fluffy we're trying to achieve here 🙂🙂

So my Stork baking brick is 500g so getting the 125g was kinda easy... 500g in two gives me 250g in two gives me... you guessed right, 125g! So here we are with approximately 125g of Stork margarine (or in your case real butter if you used that) in our ceramic bowl below waiting to be melted...

I put this in for a minute and watched the rest of unmelted Stork margarine melt into the surrounding hot fluid. I felt letting it all melt in the microwave may 'burn' it. I guess that worked well...

Whisk the batter once more so it's still as fluffly as possible before adding the other ingredients...

At this point, the number of times you mix the dry ingredients into the batter increases how heavy the cake will end up. So, try to fold in the dry ingredients with as few strokes as possible. Ideally, do this by adding the dry ingredients a bit at a time; it often helps. #hackalert

Remember to grease your baking mould!!!

I didn't have two round 20cm tins so I dumped all of mine in one rectangular one... I had to call my awesome Cake maker friend to give me tips in getting two separate pieces in the end. I'll tell you what I did that helped at that moment.

Till you see that your cake no longer rises after 10mins, don't open the oven door! Many a cake fall flat by this sudden change of temperature the oven door (or a suddenly reduced 'flame') causes. If you need to reduce the temperature in any way, try to do so after the tip above and/or when the surface of your cake looks crusty and not soft or smudgy. The no-longer-rising check is often more reliable to me. #hackalert

So in all confession, I burnt the cake... again... 😒... unfortunately my current oven has no gas mark caliberated or temperature caliberated dial. Although I did find this historical explanation on oven calibrations useful, I still have to learn to set my dial just right. I drew out that it should be on low flame, still wondering how low low should be...

Anyway since I did burn the cake, my call to my Cake maker friend became very useful. I needed to know what knife I should use to carve cake... her response, a bread knife or a sharp carving knife would do well... I chose the carving knife. It gave me a smooth cut without having to saw and lose more cake in the crumbs that would have fallen with each stroke. The carving knife I used was that sharp! You can check out these and other knives here if you need a visual or brief descriptions.

The icing (another first for me 😃)

I have never ever in my life made icing till this time. Never... so let's see how it panned out... lol...

So this is where I made a mistake... the recipe said 'icing sugar' but I used normal granulated sugar...

Well, if you've ever made icing before you'd be familiar with the impact of my choice... lol... yes... little crystals distributed within the icing.... not particularly entertaining unless you like biting into sugar crystals in icing... lol!

So lesson learnt, when it comes to baking and confectionery, I will really take note and barely cheat on the type of sugar when its been specifically called out. Icing sugar is icing sugar, I'll stick to that... lol

I love replacing essence with Robertson's Mixed Spices, so this is what I did here. I used 4 shakes to replace the approximate teaspoon of vanilla essence. 

Since I wanted to create contrast with my icing, I ended up using only some of the chocolate powder, and then added the rest and whipped the icing again after I had covered the cake.

I don't own a cake display unit yet, so I created the following from the lid of a plastic container that had a transparent bowl. I chose this container so I could decorate my cake on the lid and cover it with the bowl. No need to move the cake and smudge the icing, and it was good for slicing the cake and simply decorating it. #hackalert... lol

Contrast achieved

One of my friends bought this for me. I found it pretty useful as my other cookie press started to open up at the seams when I made my garlic straws for the first time.

So with my gift, my darker icing, and my covered cake, I continued my first ever icing job and Ta-daaa!!!

My first icing job was born! Pretty unprofessional in look, but the extreme pride in my heart remains. So proud of me 😆

With a piece of my first layered icing cake...

... and my make-shift cake display housing what remained of the cake...

... this lengthy Ndudu tales post comes to an end. On behalf of the Ndudu team, thank you so much for reading. Do leave your comments below...

And do let us know if you tried this recipe and used any of our hacks.

If you learnt anything new, or simply enjoyed this read, please like this post and/or share with others 😊

Till we meet here again, have a wonderful baking experience whenever you get to bake and an awesome Foodie experience with each bite or drink you have 😁

The Instant Nature Valley Oats - we love quickies...

Wonderful rainy morning it was today. The kind of rain my Dad will often comment that farmers say 'wets the earth'; ever so light but never really stopping. I was at home then and was hungry, not in the mood to cook but needed something warm and heavy...

Then I remembered...

One of my all time favourite quickies, Nature Valley Instant Oats!

Now Nature Valley has a snack bar I am currently addicted to. So I don't go on and on about how it looks, here's a picture and a general thought I have of it below:

I loved oats as a child, and still do. As a kid, I think it was because we didn't have it often and I got to have more milk with it. Yum! But as an adult, another reason why I like it is that it's actually instant... all you really need is hot water!

From cooking oats in a pan on fire without having to deal with the burnt part at the bottom, to learning the art of doing same in a microwave without having it spill over whilst it boils, I have discovered the joy of "deɛ wo hia ara ne nsuohyeɛ" ("all you need is hot water" written in Asante twi)

Now as some of you also know, I am mildly lactose intolerant, it started rearing its head as I grew older. So if I can avoid milk, I do. Oats being so filling and high in roughage, it often becomes my choice of carbs on my ever ongoing falling and rising fight against unhealthy weight. And talking about this fight of mine, I try to not add white or brown sugar to my meals. So none in tea, porridges, etc if I can help it.

On one occasion when I wanted to apply the two milk sugar rules above, I had a nutribar in hand and was about to prepare oats the 'instant' way. I was like, 'oh, how will this taste if I dropped in the nutribar' and then helllloooooooooooo... my quickie was born to me! The Nature Valley Instant Oats!

So today, I'll use a set of photos to describe how I make it, then talk a bit about why I love it so much.

You ready? I am!

So here goes...

Getting my hot water ready after laying out all I need... a spoon, my instant oats, my Nature Valley nutribar, my air tight container...

Two heaped desert spoons of instant oats

 In goes my nutribars

Then "deɛ me hia ara ne nsuohyeɛ" ("all I need is hot water")

If you're still wondering why I keep saying that then here's the jist before we continue... lol... a popular Ghanaian radio ad was known by its tagline 'deɛ wo hia ara ne nsuohyeɛ' emphasizing how easy it is to prepare the instant beverage it was promoting. And oh how appropriate I feel it is for my Instant Nature Valley Oats right now... lol... 'cos truly, at the end of the day, "deɛ wo hia ara ne nsuohyeɛ".

Ok, commercial break over... (oh my, I love the unintended pun lol)... let's continue with the recipe...

Depending on how thick you want it, just make sure the hot water covers the both the instant oats and the nutribars.

Cover it tightly and allow it to sit for at least 5mins. 

I choose 5mins because I can be sure the steam and hot water have done a great job at making my oats texture-friendly. However, remember, when you try it, just like the amount of hot water you use, timing is absolutely dependant on how you want your oats.

This is how it will look after your 5mins or more... 

So you stir it quickly with a spoon and get this... our Instant Nature Valley Oats!

Honeyed, creamy and delicious...

... And steaming hot too! I tried to capture the steam rising from my instant quickie but Alas! My phone shot isn't good enough for that...

So now that you know how I make one of my quickies, do share with us how feel about it in the comments below. Was it fun? Easy? Not as awesome as you imagined it? Lol... we'll be waiting for your honest feedback.

Now on to why I love this quickie, which adds to my addiction to it and the nutribar itself... #morereasontolove lol...

• It has no milk but still feels creamy and tasty.
• The honey from the nutribar does well to flavour my oats deliciously. The other ingredients in the nutribar add more life to it than just milk and sugar ever did for me.
• I have no dishes to wash aside my air tight container and my spoon if I made it for myself alone.
• It takes only about 5mins to make.
• If I have access to hot water where I want to eat it, say at work, I can pack the measured-out oats and unwrapped nutribar in just the air tight container, add my spoon and I'm good to have a quick meal whenever I need it. C'est bon!
• I'm convinced there are a few more, but since I can't readily recall them, you now have at least 5 reasons why I love this quickie. #allsmiles

So, as usual, I'm really glad you made it to the end of this post. I hope you learnt something new and hope you also enjoyed reading.

Till we meet here at Ndudu tales again, do have an awesome foodie experience whenever you can make one, and let the world know what our quickie was today... yayy! 

It was nice having you back reading our post at Ndudu tales. And if this was your first time, we're happy you took time to read through. If you learnt something new or simply enjoyed this post, do share with others. Also, remember to leave your comments below, we look forward to reading them. We trust you will enjoy the rest of your day, no matter what's left of it!

Dry fried sunny side up!

Alló, alló, alló... how are you? I hope you're good? Guess what we're having here at Ndudu tales today...

Well if you read the title, you 'guessed' right! Drum roll... Dry fried sunny side up!
Resounding applause... lol

In case you're not sure what a sunny side up is, let me try and explain.

This is a picture of sunny side up eggs and toast that I downloaded from Google images

A sunny side up is an egg that is often deep fried in low heated oil (or preferred fat). The egg is broken into the oil and it spreads on its own. Then a ladle is used to gather some of this oil and continuously used to pour the oil over the exposed part of the egg over and over again. This is done till the surface is cooked and if you like your yolk well done and not runny, you'd have to keep doing it for a few more minutes to ensure so. Never turn a sunny side, never. Otherwise, your nice warm Sun (yolk) will look like it's broken hearted and your pretty white cloud (egg white) will be ready to cry. No, never turn a Sunnyside or it'll end up being anything but a Sunnyside

My friend, Sne, taught me how to make a sunnyside.

Sne and I

I loved it! And even loved it when I overheated the oil and got a witchlike looking Sunnyside... lol. Check out this Instagram post to see what I'm referring to. Good character for a horror movie, no? Lol... I mean it doesn't look as good as a proper fried Sunnyside but the extra crisp and oil added to it's fascinating taste.

However, most days, I don't like the fact that the egg seems to drip of oil. To reduce this, I would often wrap it in tissue as much as possible after frying it so it would absorb a good quantity of oil on the surface of the egg.

BUT, but... even that couldn't help me thinking if there was some other way. If there was truly some other way to get my pretty Sun and cloud on my Sunnyside but not cook it in a huge amount of oil...

Introducing a Convo I had with some friends after I discovered how to achieve this...

Now permit me to interject here:  I love the word discover. It kinda makes me feel I've found a pot of gold. It doesn't mean other people haven't found a pot of gold themselves or even found the other end of my pot of gold. It just means I have found it almost without much external influence (if you don't count God, lol) and it always sends a thrill down my spine. Even better, when I find out that my discovery already existed, especially in cooking, my days, don't I feel like a genius!

Loololll

Now back to the narration... where was I? Oh yes, the Convo...

Please note that these are excepts from a real Whatsapp chat and individual names and numbers have been concealed to protect privacy. The individuals are colour coded so you can follow the convo in the same vein as knowing their names. Lastly, do forgive the messy colouring, I'm still getting used to my photo editor and may get better with time... lolI... All the same, do enjoy...

A summary of the inside joke here, the green-coded lady went on a particular egg frying spree after her discovery of frying unbeaten eggs heavily laced with tomato gravy at my house about 10years ago. She got weary of it quickly and has never been able to have fried unbeaten eggs since then. 

A few days after the above convo, our yellow-coded group member tried out the dry fried sunny side up... to my utmost delight...

So this is how we made our sunny side up without it having to take a dip in lots of fat. Though it's still a fried egg, you may think if it as the Sunnyside that got prepared on the wet beach and not in the middle of the fatty ocean. And if that doesn't help, just remember it that dry frying is often healthier than deep frying. Nice!!

So once again, with lots of love from Ndudu tales, we wish you all the best with your next cooking experience and hope you try out our dry fried sunny side up soon! And if you do, don't forget to share your comments below.

Till we meet again, have a wonderful food-loving experience, however you have it, as many times as you do!

Adios!!

Thanks for reading our post at Ndudu tales. We're always happy to know you were here. If you learnt something new or just enjoyed this post, do share with others. Also, remember to leave your comments below, we look forward to reading them. Have a lovely day, night or whatever time frame you're in #allsmiles

T Havanna Pork

I love holidays. And I love fried pork!!! And this joint's pork makes me feel like celebrating each time I have it.

You see, I'm one of those people who loves to have pork but not really taste the strength of the meat itself. Simply put, I love my pork well spiced so it doesn't taste porky, but it also doesn't taste like I'm chewing a wad of spices and ginger. And guess what? T Havanna pork is just that to me. No wonder I feel like celebrating...

Location

So T Havanna can be found by Google Maps via the link below:

T Havanna Gardens,
Hospital Rd Link, Tema
 https://goo.gl/maps/vmHaDtoMS7r

It's actually an outdoor pub-like place and has a green hedge surrounding it so you surely can't miss it.

There's outdoor parking within the hedge and security personnel who help you find a spot to park. Alternatively, you may park outside the hedge in case there's no space within. I'll talk more about other things you might want to note about the place in the ambience section in just a bit. Now let's talk about the food!

Taste & Texture

There are quite a number of chops sold at T Havanna, including fried yam, khebabs (gizzard, beef, sausage, and maybe some others as well). There are alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks to go with what you eat. But my all-time favourite, and sometimes only purchase, at T Havanna is the pork!

The pork I fell in love with was handled by a certain gentleman when I was first introduced to T Havanna pork. Oh yum! I can still remember how excited I was about it. It reminded me of some particular spare ribs from my childhood, nowadays I often get the kinds of pork I don't like when I request spare ribs at Chinese restaurants. Now when this man stopped working at T Havanna, the pork taste & texture changed and then started moving from bad to worse. They replaced the vendor a couple of times, but still the taste & texture I fell in love with was gone. 

However, to my greatest delight, and to challenge my cheat-on-my-diet discipline more, there's a lady there now that does it just right! The pork love of my life is baaaack... lol

Trust me to forget to take a shot when I'm hungry.

 So this is T-Havanna pork (in the dark) after I dropped my pork-selector (a.k.a. common toothpick) to take a shot.

 A full serving is about this height and fills the base of the pack.

Now how do I describe the taste & texture any more than I have in the intro... hmmm... 

A light just went on... lol

Ok, so the pork is fried hard. So it's not moist, or wet, and often if you find some pork hyde in it, it could be very tough or even crispy. In spite of this, the meat is often tender, even though dry. If you've never had such meat, do try this. I'm a moist soft meat lover but this surely works for me! 

The flavour is rich and the spicing is not overdone if you ask me. You know you're chewing tasty meat but it doesn't overwhelm you with the strong flavour that pork is often associated with. It's peppery and the khebab powder sprinkled on top of it adds to the flavour. The sliced onions and bell peppers added to the pack also make the taste come alive even more. Try using the toothpicks served with it to pick an onion slice, a bell pepper slice, some pork and some extra khebab powder before popping this combo in your mouth. It's the icing on the cake for this meal for me.

I'm not a drinker, so I wouldn't be the best person to recommend a strong drink to go with this. However, I will surely recommend a Sprite, Coca Cola, Fanta Lemon, Schweppes Bitter Lemon or Schweppes Tonic Water to go with this. The fizz definitely helps curb the pepper effects on your tongue if it's on fire from the pork. The fizz, I also often feel, fills me up so I don't feel so hungry when I split my serving with another person. Out of the lot, I often choose what drink I'm in the mood for or what's available. Each drink has its own unique addition to the pork savouring experience, so do try them all when you can and create your own mood-based list. Lol

Cost per serving

T Havanna pork currently costs 20 cedis a pack for the smallest serving. You may definitely request more than 20 cedis if you want to. 

As a general rule of thumb for most eat out purchases, if your extra purchase costs a multiple of the minimum serving, buy as many minimum servings as possible instead of bundling it all in one serving. That way you tend to get more value for money.

The minimum serving is more than enough for me and as earlier mentioned I tend to share it. However, remember that all that pepper has a tendency to make you eat more than you need. Therefore eat as little as you can and give yourself a 20 minute pause before you decide if you've truly had enough. You may be surprised how much actually fills you up.

Opening Hours

T Havanna pork is often available between 6pm and 8pm everyday. However, when there are a lot of random orders, it could get finished as early as 7pm. And on days that you're lucky you may get some to buy after 9pm. 

T Havanna itself is active way before and way after these times. Since our focus is the pork... lol... I'll just speak to your best bet on times to buy this pork.

Ambience

T Havanna is an open air pub so if you need to go there, do go well covered lest the mosquitoes have a field day on your skin. There's a huge screen that often shows music videos or a football match. There's loud music at night and dim lighting. There are canopies that cover a number of tables with seats in a wide space. Sometimes there are private and public events held there as well. 

If you're buying to go, as I often do, you would have to walk to the respective vendors to make your preferred purchase. They have quite a number of vendors and I honestly have not bought from all of them before.

To find the pork vendor, just ask any of the security men within the premises where the pork is sold. You won't miss it when you do. You probably won't miss it either if you ask anyone else... lol

Service

I honestly have not sat down to order anything at T Havanna before so there isn't much for me to say about the service if you plan to do so when you go there. So I'll warmly welcome your own low down on their service in the comments if you are ever served seated at one of their tables. 

But since I'm a frequent touch and go customer, I'll talk about buying from there. First of all, as indicated earlier, you would need to walk to each vendor and place your order. If their orders are a lot, they may not prepare yours if you walk away. So if you need to move away from any vendor, keep going back to ask if your order is ready till you are served. I personally won't recommend this though.

Secondly, you may have to get used to the fact that the vendors you know can change often. And at any time, you could get bubbly chatty vendors to rather impersonal ones. They are generally polite and are often efficient.

Other comments

Though I love this pork to bits, like holidays, it's more rewarding to have it occasionally. Definitely not because of taste, since it's mostly on point for me, but because of all the fat I consume in a serving and all the extra calories I add with a fizzy drink (which more often than not is a 1.5l bottle between two of us). Remember, though dry, the pork is still fried. 

So my advice, don't go on a guilt trip when you dig in to the delicious T Havanna pork, but don't, just don't have it so often. Be kind to the rest of your bodyas well as your taste buds... lol

So now that I've told you almost everything I know about T Havanna pork, please do let us know here at Ndudu tales if you've tried it and what you think about it.

And do have a delicious pork savouring experience at T Havanna when you do!




It was great having you back reading here at Ndudu tales. And if this was your first read here, we're excited you shared our Foodie experience with us today. Please remember to comment and share this post with others if you enjoyed it. And thanks again for reading our write up at Ndudu tales #allsmiles