It is women’s Month and we wanted to dedicate this Masterclass investing in young chefs (mostly female), spending the afternoon talking all things Food, future career options in the industry and inspirational chats and of course a Tea Tutorial.
We kicked off the Tea class with a Tea smelling and Tea Tasting session and talking about our partnership.
We then gave a fun fun cooking class to some of our favourite chef students. We got to talk about our favourite tea and answer some of their tea questions.
We demonstrated three recipes:
1. Fizzy lemon ice tea
2. Garden salad with a Rooibos dressing
3. Pancake cake with a Mascarpone and Rooibos cream
All these recipes were developed with one Rooibos base, a Laager Rooibos syrup. The Laager Rooibos simple syrup is one of our favourite recipes and ingredients to use. It can be stored in the fridge for weeks, used for pancakes, a sweetener for your tea, a base for your ice tea or a honey for your dressing (vinaigrette or creamy). We love this because it is so diverse and multifunctional. We think we might have created something genius here. The recipe is simple, 2 cups of water, 8 tea bags and 1 cup of sugar. Boil until it has reduced in half. Then cool down and store in the fridge.
It’s such an honour for us to invest a bit of our time and knowledge into students who might decided to choose food as their career path.
ROOIBOS DEMO RECIPES
ROOIBOS SYRUP:
- 3 cups water
- 6 Laager Rooibos teabags
- 1 cup sugar
To make syrup, boil the water, tea and sugar in a saucepan and simmer over medium heat until liquid reduces to half and thickens. Completely cool down the mixture and store in the fridge until ready to use.
ROOIBOS PANCAKE CAKE WITH ROOIBOS MARSCAPONE FILLING ROOIBOS PANCAKES:
- 2 cups self raising flour
- 2 Tbls castor sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 3 cups milk
- 4 laagerrooibos teabags
- 4 eggs
- 1 Tbls oil
Warm up the milk up with the teabags, on medium heat in a saucepan, until the milk becomes ‘rooibosy.’ Just simmer the milk, don’t bring to a boil. Remove the teabags and allow the milk to completely cool down.
Meanwhile in a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.
In another bowl, whisk together the rooibos milk, oil and eggs.
Slowly mix n the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until the batter is nice and smooth.
Batter should be pouring consistency. Divide the batter into two bowls and colour the one bowl with a drop of pink food colouring.
In a non-stick pan, on medium heat, using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, pour batter into hot pan, swirl around until the bottom of the pan is covered. Once the bubbles start to form, flip the pancake to cook the other side until golden brown on both sides.
Repeat until all the batter is finished. Set aside for stacking.
ROOIBOS MARSCAPONE FILLING:
- 2 tubs plain mascarpone cheese
- 1/2 cup rooibos syrup
Whisk the mascarpone with rooibos syrup until nice and loose. Add more rooibos syrup is preferred.
TO MAKE PANCAKE CAKE:
On a cake stand, place a white pancake at the bottom, spread a bit of the rooibos filling on top and place a pink pancake onto and repeat until all the pancakes and filling is finished. The top later should be the mascarpone cream topped with fresh berries and a dusting of icing sugar. Refrigerate until ready to eat.
ROOIBOS DRESSING:
- 1 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup rooibos syrup
- Salt and pepper, to taste
In a jug, mix all the ingredients together until well mixed. Adjust seasoning and sweetness. Shake well before dressing your salad. It stores well in the refrigerator if there’s any left overs.
LEMONY ROOIBOS ICED TEA:
- 2 lemons, sliced
- 1 cup rooibos syrup
- 4 cups tonic water
- 1 bunch mint leaves, to garnish
