What fun!!….to be selected as one of the food bloggers to take part in a food challenge at the Woolworths theatre at the Good Food and Wine show this year. And it all started with a simple tweet to the team at #GFWS2013 (if you’re not following me already….go find me @fehmz)
Next thing I know I had an e-mail in my inbox saying I had won two free tickets to the show, including a spot in the challenge for myself and partner.
Since the hubster refuses to do anything public unless forced to, I was delighted that my friend Tasneem agreed to join me on the day.
We spent the weekend wondering what would be on the mystery table of ingredients that we could work with, at the least we knew our main ingredient was fairtrade coffee.
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So we mused…would it be something savoury to which a delightful coffee chilli spice rub would go so well. Or would it be something sweet…
Surely if it’s a challenge there might be a curveball in there so we tried to think up all the possibilities. But the day before, we decided the best would be to take it easy, take a break, try not to think about it too much. Coz when it came to it, what we really wanted out of it all was a fun experience and to go with the flow, while making a mess at the same time. Hahaha
And fun we had! Was lovely to be in the company of our MC and the Masterchef winner Kamini Pather as well as one of the other contestants, Seline van der Wat who is just a happy bubble of energy and fun.
Back to the event, so there was no meat….which might have been fun if we HAD to use it but there was a definite sigh of relief when we didn’t see it.
The table had an array of spices, and lots of condiments that could result in delicious sweet coffee dishes….and that’s what we did.
We baked a mini chocolate chilli cake with coffee ganache….and french toast stuffed with sundried tomato & pistachios, served with a delicious sweet coffee syrup.
The cake had me sweating, it refused to get baked in time and I made the mistake of not tasting the batter, uhmm…too little sugar. Oh well…it was fun and the ganache made up for it.
But my favourite was definitely the stuffed french toast. It was a weird weird combo…but something I think I will probably play with again. Stuffed french toast, I’ve seen it so many times before but didn’t have the courage to do it until the pressure was on. Totally worth it.
If you’re thinking of trying some then try stuffing it with strawberries & chocolate, grilled peaches, banana & pecans (this was our first choice but one of the contestants got to ALL the bananas before we got to the table) etc.
We made the french toast mixture with eggs and fresh cream. After frying, toss it in some cinnamon & sugar (or any other flavours that you like, can you imagine if it was cayenne pepper for a savoury kick?….hmmmm I smell an experiment forthcoming)
What a lekker experience. Loved it!
Looking forward to next year!
And the pics are not done. Here’s Seline’s signature spun sugar that she did for a team who also baked some chocolate cake.
We all laid our food on the table to sit and enjoy together. There were so many interesting variations using coffee. I personally loved the coffee crepes and the banana stacked cake.
Four seconds left on the clock! I gave up stressing about the “done-ness” of my cake by now. Hahahahaha
Apologies for the poor pictures, they were rushed and taken with my horribly incompetent phone.
*this post was not sponsored by any external parties and the views expressed herein are my own*