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ABOUT MARNA ROSS

Everything about Classical Cooking has always been of great interest to me. Maybe it is because my chef school training course contained a lot of classical cooking and French cuisine or maybe it is personally been about my love for classical cooking.

After all, I think modern cuisine is just classical cooking modified and twisted as food trends come and go. And the food trends come and go about all the time.

In my food blog, I would love to share about all the classical cooking recipes that I have built up in the last fifteen years of my career. While I was for most of my career working in the Guest House area of the Hospitality Industry, I often had little time to spend on the internet for new recipes when I felt the inspiration had gone a bit out of the back door at that specific time. Most of my recipe ideas come from myself, but sometimes you just need more inspiration to complete the menu idea for your dinner guests of that evening. So here on my food blog, you will find classical cooking recipes that are truly recipes you can trust. As a busy chef, you would search for a trustworthy recipe as your day is filled with lots of tasks and you cannot afford to waste time with recipes which flop!

I cover quite a few categories about classical cooking recipes and ideas. From breakfast, baking, etc. right through till wonderful soft desserts to complete your meal. My classical cooking recipes are tried and trusted and I would love to help other chefs and cooks to quickly find inspiration on a busy working day! You get lot of books regarding<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Cooking-Modern-Way-Techniques/dp/0471291870"> classical cooking</a> on the market.

Over the years cooking trends have come and go and even returned - just like fashion- but I still think classical cooking will forever be part of our food journey. The classics will always be there - modernized - but there. I hope that I will inspire you to keep the classical cooking fire burning!

If you enjoy Classical Cooking, stay on my blog because you are about to discover lovely recipes.

My Favorites

Malva Pudding

Malva pudding is one of the best winter desserts to make in the winter time. Serve is warm with custard and cream or ice-cream. Everyone will indulge in a piece, even just a small serving but for sure they will not sit out on this dessert round! I used to make this quite a lot for our guests at Augusta Kleinbosch Guest Farm. When we had BBQ evening, sometimes this recipe was the dessert. My manager at that time, Laetitia, used to love this recipe too. The tip in this recipe is to use the real butter in the sauce. Some or most people use ideal milk in their malva pudding recipe sauce part. But I believe what makes this malva pudding such a success is not using ideal milk at all. Malva pudding is a classic in Afrikaans households and therefore a very popular dessert. It is again a quick and easy recipe. How you plate and present your dessert is your choice. I used to make creme anglaise with this pudding, homemade vanilla ice-cream and for that chef/cuisine element a brandy snap. Oh, and of course spin sugar creations. See in the food industry it is all about taste, and of course what your eyes meet. That is why you must always try to make your plate of food as beautiful as you can. With malva pudding, you can cut it into squares, or bake in individual round ramekins or bake in squares and just use your round cutter shape to choose your size and cut it out. Others like to just dish up with a simple spoon and add the custard on top of the malva pudding with a mint leaf as garnish.

Vanilla Cupcakes

I get super excited when thinking or just hearing the word Vanilla Cupcakes! Here you can be creative as you like! My ultimate favourite. Vanilla Cupcakes is one of the most important items on a high tea menu or a kiddies birthday party. And you can be so creative with it.This is a wonderful recipe. The Vanilla Cup Cake is the a basic and easy recipe. You can play with various colours of icing on it, and go absolutely wild! Use colours, cupcake holders of beautiful colours, go extreme, the choice is yours! While working at Augusta Kleinbosch Guest Farm making these was one of my favourites. Whenever I could suggest it or make it for any occasion, I was extra happy. The room's cleaning ladies used to come around to the kitchen to see what new creations on the decoration side I came up with. And they used to tell me to open my own cupcake shop! So much love to you two ladies Rachel and Esmie who believed in me, but opening your own shop is really not that easy. You still make me smile when I bake Vanilla Cupcakes. The frosting is a lovely base as well, you can play with colours such as the colouring liquid or the colouring powder you get from various supermarkets and baking shops. For the decoration you can let loose with eatable sweets, eatable glitter, 100 and 1000's, chocolate vermicelli and all the rest! Google and the internet are full of creative ideas to add to your final project. Or visit the local Chinese shop in town, their shops are also full of fun things to add to the cupcakes.I hope you find so much joy you will continue every week to bake some for work colleagues, friends, families or your own baking shop. Have a look on my Facebook Page: The Smoking Chimney for ideas for decorating. I have also baked some cupcakes for different birthday pary themes such as Jungle and Sea themes.

Classic Tiramisu

Yummy! Me and my lovely husband Iwan Ross's favourite recipe in the whole world! When I cook at home for a special occasion and we decide on a dessert: Classic Tiramisu is always the answer! The dessert where we eat the ramekin or bowl entirely empty! Classical Tiramisu is originally from Italy and it means ‘Pick me up or Lift me up’! I can guarantee you that you will feel lifted up after you had some of this tasty dessert! This classic tiramisu recipe is also lovely to make into individual ramekins for each person to enjoy their own. It is wise to use a good quality coffee and not so-called chicory extracted coffee powder which in my eyes should not even be called coffee at all. Classical tiramisu's main ingredients are made of mascarpone cheese - which you get easily from your closest supermarket. They key is to sponge the sponge fingers with the coffee and not to make the sponge fingers soggy of the coffee. Classical tiramisu is a lovely summer dessert you can quickly assemble for whatever special occasion! They also make tiramisu cake these days - a newer version of the old-fashioned classical tiramisu. But for me, the classical dishes will always be the winner. They would not have been able to make a tiramisu cake if it wasn't for the classical tiramisu that was discovered first! For a lovely Italian main course, try Chicken Parmesan.

Vanilla Ice-Cream

Oe la la ... vanilla ice-cream! Home-made ice-cream! A very good recipe to quickly steal someone's heart. This is a very basic vanilla ice-cream recipe that can be transformed into various assorted flavors of ice-cream. The best part of it is that you can play so much with the flavours, it's absolutely fantastic! My favourite is vanilla flavour, made with vanilla pods and vanilla essence and the cinnamon flavour that goes well with the chocolate brownies. I also use this vanilla ice-cream recipe together with my milk tart recipe and gooseberry compote. The texture of this vanilla ice-cream is soft, smooth and silky! I have also made Cinnamon (this is divine with a chocolate dessert for those who love cinnamon!), Litchi and coconut, a berry (strawberry and blueberry), orange,cofee, brandy, chocolate, rooibos etc. The ideas are endless, the list can go so much on...Blueberry flavour, granadilla and peppermint can also make a perfect ice-cream for those who love that particular flavours! With this vanilla ice-cream you can eat spoons full just as it is, on cones or combine it with wonderful baked winter desserts or splendid summer desserts. It is easy to make, freezes well and once you started making this ice-cream you can be assured that you will look twice in the supermarket to buy ice-cream unless it is Woolworths great quality. We all grew up with ice-cream in the house. I remember I helped my dad making a kind of own variation consisting of nuts, red cherries and marshmallows with normal vanilla ice-cream from the shop that we kept out to unfreeze a bit so that we can add all favourites to it. So go ahead and start making your own vanilla flavoured ice-cream or any other flavour of yours! And add a lovely dessert snack such as a tuille biscuit to your trio of ice-cream in a martini glass!