Recipe for the day

Caramel and Apple Cake

Caramel and Apple Cake is a seriously yummy cake. Just perfect for the autumnal glut of apples, and once eaten, you’ll want to make it again and again.

Grease or oil and line a cake tin.


You will need

For the caramel apples

50 g soft brown sugar
45 g butter
2 cored, peeled and chopped dessert apples

Add the sugar and butter to a shallow frying pan and heat on a low light to allow the sugar to melt - don’t stir it.

Add the apples and increase the heat. Stir all around and when the bubbles are getting bigger, turn the heat off and cool.



For the cake

200 g butter
150 g sugar
1 tablespoon youhurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons maple syrup
3 eggs and 3 tablespoons of milk
210 g self raising flour
1 level teaspoon cinnamon
Grating of nutmeg

Add the butter, sugar, yoghurt, vanilla, maple syrup and beat together

Sieve the cinnamon and flour and nutmeg and fold a little of the mixture into the butter mix

Beat in the eggs and the milk

Fold in , beat in the rest of the flour into the mix

Line the tin with the apples

Bake at170ºC, 325ºF, Gas 3 for 30 - 40 minutes depending on the size of the cake

When cooled, spike the cake and drizzle the topping over the top


For the topping

1 heaped tablespoon icing sugar
3 tablespoons maple syrup

Making Biltong


There are lots of recipes out there for Biltong, it’s completely up to you really how you do it, but the two essential ingredients are salt and no water.

What I mean by ‘no water’ is the meat is dried, completely. That with the saltiness of the meat is enough to preserve.

Now of course you can get it in little packets, not very much for quite a lot of money.

Living in a wet climate, we use the dehydrator to force the water from the meat. Traditionally, so the story goes, biltong was made by putting meat under the saddle and it was then rode on all day. That way the meat was salted by horse sweat. No idea if this is true! I have also heard it about kebabs and Ghengis Kahn’s men, so who knows?

In this recipe you need

Very thin slices of beef - around 2 - 3 mm thick

Carraway seeds

Fennel seeds

Curing salt - with nitrates already added - we used Weschenfelder Continental Cure, which is very low in nitrates. But then I feel it is important to have some in this uncooked product to guard against botulism.

Balsamic vinegar


Put a sprinkling of salt in the bottom of a container and lay out some strips of beef on top

Sprinkle a layer of curing salt on top of the meat

Then sprinkle a layer of carraway seeds

Then a layer of fennel seeds

Then splash the laters with balsamic vinegar (Some recipes call for Worcestershire sauce instead)

Then lay another load of beef on the top and repeat the process until your beef is finsihed

Cover with food wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours

After 24 hours wash off the seeds and place in the dehydrator and process until completely dry and moisture free

You can freeze it - in vac bags preferably, otherwise eat them within about a week - which is no problem with us. Of course, if you live in a dry windy environment you can dry them outside - it is probably better that way.

This is an easy meal for anyone, quick and very tasty!

You need

3 Tablespoons oil
2 medium onion
2 cloves of garlic
550 - 600 g pork tenderloin
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/3 rounded teaspoon sage
300 ml stock or water
150 g button mushrooms
Salt and pepper
1 dessertspoon cornflour slaked in a little water

Fry the vegetables until soft but not coloured
Add the meat and cook for a few minutes
Then all the rest of the ingredients

Cook for about 40 minutes at a strong simmer