Rule is if you stay in the countryside don’t expect to find exotic ingredients, by sticking to this rule, ALWAYS, you won’t be disappointed.
Now you might think that I’m over exaggerating, I mean how is it possible not to find something here, yet we only stay a 2 hours drive from Johannesburg. Let me give you few examples: Blueberries in a tin, vanilla pods, hazelnuts, and don’t forget fresh whole-wheat bread rolls. Seriously??? Yes seriously!
Until now I couldn’t explain it myself and the only logical reason is that the people in my area got so used to not having the huge variation on the shop shelves that we simply drive all the way to Johannesburg to buy it.
You see, you can normally spot us a mile away in the City. We are the people who stops in EVERY row at EVERY Shelve and stare at the products, normally with a dazed and confused expression slowly turning into a thrilled look with a lot of smiles once we’ve read the label and know what the product is all about. We will probably also end up using it the wrong way as well, until we are educated by the next cooking show on the food network.
This cupcakes is a good example of baking from scratch. I was actually dreaming up a blueberry cupcake with Vanilla butter icing….nevermind!
The Rooibos infused cupcakes was not a bad idea after all and turned out to be lovely.
Ingredients for the cupcakes
200 g Cake Flour
150 g Castor Sugar
125 g butter
125 ml Strong Rooibos tea, cooled
1 tbs Honey, mix with Rooibos tea
2 eggs
5 ml salt
2 tsp baking powder
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, cream the butter and sugar, add eggs one by one. Sift the Flour and salt and add alternatively with the Rooibos to the butter mixture. Spoon into 12 paper cups and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Allow to completely cool down.
For the Rooibos tea Icing
125 g soft butter
300 g Icing Sugar
6 Rooibos tea teabags
100 ml Cream
3 tbs Honey
1 tin Caramel condensed milk
(Make sure there is children around because you won’t use all of it)
Place the teabags into a pot with the cream and the honey, bring to boil. Reduce the heat and allow the syrup to simmer until the mixture has thickened and darkened in colour. Allow to cool completely.
It looks kinda weird…I know.
Add the butter to the mixture and beat on high-speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Sift the icing sugar and add to the mixture beating until creamy.
Spread a thick layer of the caramel over the cupcakes and decorate with the Rooibos tea Icing.
