22 February 2018 Thursday

I had lunch with some aqua ladies at The Silver Birch restaurant, Lifestyle Garden Nursery, Randburg (http://www.thesilverbirch.co.za/ ).  

I had zucchini (baby marrow) batter ‘fries’ and they were just delicious.  Some ladies had the battered fish & chips (quite a portion and it looked good!), others had a hamburger without a bun, a tropical pizza and a sandwich with beef strips.  Everything was really good.  

My eyes fell on the milkshakes and I HAD TO order it … Licorice milkshake.  It arrived, looked purple and ‘weird’ but TASTED FANTASTIC!  They could actually have added more licorice for me!  After I finished my milkshake, my friends looked at me and asked:  ‘have you put purple lipstick on?’  Uh … no …. Then I stuck out my tongue … oh my word … it was PURPLE!!!!!!!  Not Lavender purple, but DARK purple. 

Of course that gave me an idea … I’ve bought a while back some licorice essence but it was gross.  I have also last year tried to melt licorice for muffins and didn’t have success … so I thought I’ll try again.  Another lady said her granddaughter makes this amazing licorice ice cream .. and melts the licorice in milk …  unfortunately I couldn’t wait for the recipe, so yesterday I added water to my licorice and on a medium heat on the stove, stirred and stirred and stirred until EVENTUALLY they were all melted!  (I was literally drooping too … patience not my strongest virtue).  It tastes good, but I haven’t made milkshake yet.

Today I received the real recipe and so I bought more soft-eating licorice and will now try it with milk.  I don’t have a real double-boiler, so I poured boiling water in a small pot and with another bigger pot on top, added the cut-up licorice with ¼ cup milk.  Stirred, added more milk, stirred – (my hands were cramping afterwards from holding the wooden spoon) – it took me more than 30 minutes … and I’ve added about 2 cups of milk in the process.  And still some small pieces of licorice were stubborn enough not to melt.  BUT THE TASTE WAS JUST AMAZING!   After it cooled down, the mixture thickened, so I added it to a bowl, added yet MORE milk and used my stick blender to smooth it out.  Really good.  

I decided to make licorice muffins ... used coconut flour and they came out lovely!

 

Black licorice Coconut Flour Muffins

Author: Sarah

Serves: 8-10 muffins, 24 mini muffins.

• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 75 g sweet black liquorice, cut into small pieces
• ½ cup milk of your choice
• ½ cup coconut flour
• ½ cup white sugar
• ⅓ cup veg oil
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ cup desiccated coconut
• Brown sugar for topping

Instructions

1. Heat liquorice with ½ cup boiling water on stove, stirring often till its soft.  Drain and chop in food processor to a pulp.
2. Add oil and beaten eggs to liquorice pulp.
3. Add milk to mixture.  Mix together.
4. Add baking powder to coconut flour.  Add the white sugar and coconut.
5. Add dry mixture slowly to wet mixture, stirring as you go. Coconut flour absorbs a lot of moisture, so adding it slowly will ensure an even batter.  Let it stand for a few minutes. 
6. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celcius.
7. Pour mixture into prepared 6 muffin pan holes (I always use cupcake wrappers) to the top.  Sprinkle brown sugar on top.  Bake for about 25 minutes or till test skewer comes out clean.

Adapted by alma pretorius http://www.lightenupblog.co/passionfruit-coconut-flour-muffins/

Melting licorice

227g licorice

1 cup water

Chop licorice into 1 inch pieces. 

Add licorice and 1 cup of water to a small saucepan. 

Melt together over low heat, stirring frequently.  The mixture will be thicker than molasses and will have some flecks of licorice remaining.  This is ok. 

Allow the licorice mix to cool to the touch.