Double Dini

Drink like its your last day on earth. Eat like its going out of style.

[doubledini]

Banana Bread

It's those weird little memories from your childhood that can sometimes yield the best results. I remember standing in my aunts kitchen, I was very young, and she told me that she uses the bananas that are browning to make the best banana bread. It didn't make much sense since they were pretty much going off. 

This week we had an over flow of bananas in our fruit bowl. Ever since I read an article about bananas having more sugar than a doughnut (thanks Internet for ruining my life) I've tried to lay off the bananas. Now that we had several small banana that were going off I decided to put her recipe to the test. 

When I was at Rhodes University, I used to eat a lot of banana bread with my best friend Caroline; especially when it was on sale (student budget). It was a great and also sugary snack. I also had a friend from junior and high school who used to come to school with buttered banana bread everyday at one point. So I pretty much blame her for all of this.

Good luck. It's a really easy recipe! 

Ingredients: 

120 ml sugar 

230 ml butter 

2 beaten eggs 

4 mashed medium sized bananas 

350 ml flour 

5 ml baking soda 

Pinch of salt 

5 ml of vanilla essence 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Prepare your bread tin by spraying it with spray and cook or spreading butter all over it. It may help to lightly flour the pan as well. 

2. Cream the butter and sugar. You will know it's well combined when it becomes whiter and fluffier. 

3. Add the the two eggs and mashed bananas. I used 8 baby bananas, cut them into smaller pieces and easier mashed them with a fork. 

4. In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients and add into the banana mixture together with the vanilla essence. You should mix it a little bit before you add the vanilla essence so it is incorporated well into the mixture and doesn't disappear into the flour. 

5. Pour the batter in the ready prepared pan and put in the oven for about an hour. Mine went in for an extra 5 minutes hence the darker colour but you should always make sure the inside is ready. 

For those who dont have fancy baking materials. The great thing about bread is that it gives you lovely cracks to put a knife through and test Id it's ready without ruining the bread. Leave to cool for about 10 minutes. 👌

[doubledini]

Home Made Soft Pretzels

Okay so firstly, we are making a soft pretzel recipe. These aren't the kinds of pretzels you find in packets at a grocery store.

Soft pretzels are so special in that you can pull them apart, dip them in many different sauces and they taste good all the time. Some say it may take too much effort, but it's completely worth it, I promise.

Most recipes don't explain why certain things are needed and why it makes it so important which is why most people who don't bake can fail at a recipe.

Making the dough of this is extremely important. Most stores sell instant yeast which changes the way most recipes will work. The change will be seen in this recipe too. To get the perfect consistency for a dough is difficult the first time if you've never felt or seen it before. It should be stretchy, dry and if you do it by hand, you should expect a fart noise every now and then from incorporating the air.

All pretzel recipes will tell you to boil your pretzels in boiling water and baking soda. The 30 seconds the pretzel will sit in the water will give your pretzels will help them brown a lot nicer and craft those gorgeous perfect cracks once it comes out the oven.

 Ingredients

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 tablespoon of salt

1 pack of dry yeast

4 1/2 cups of flour

1 1/2 cups of water

60g of melted butter

 10 cups of water

2/3 cups of baking soda

1 egg yolk

Pretzel salt or brown sugar and cinnamon

 Directions

 1.Combine the dry ingredients in a large shallow bowl; the sugar, yeast, flour and salt.

2. Add the warm water to the mixture and combine with a dough mixer or with our hands if you do not have one, and add the butter until well combined.

3. Knead the dough until it is smooth and starts to pull away from the side of the bowl which should take about 5 minutes. 

If you do this by hand, remove the dough from the bowl and knead it with your hands on a floured surface. It should take double the time.

4. You can either clean the bowl, or get a new bowl and brush it with oil and return the dough into the oil.

5. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm/ sunny place for about 50 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

6.    When the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Line the sheet pans with parchment paper and brush with oil. Spray and cook doesn't work as well. You will struggle to pull off the pretzels from the parchment paper

7.    Bring the water and baking soda to a boil in a large saucepan. Depending on the size of your pretzels you can halve this into a smaller sauce pan just like i did.

8. While you are waiting for the water to boil. Break off pieces of the dough and roll into small balls then rolling each piece into a rope of any length. The longer, the better as long as it retains some thickness. Make a U-shape with the dough and cross over the ends and press to hold in order to make the pretzel shape.

9. Place the pretzels one by one for 30 seconds at a time. Remove the pretzel with a large enough spatula to retain the shape. But it on to the parchment paper and brush with egg yolk.

10.This is the part where you can get creative. Sprinkle some pretzels salt, some sugar and cinnamon, or even tiny chopped up chocolate (that can be done half way through baking). Bake until golden in colour which would take about 12-15 minutes. If they get brown too quickly, reduce the heat but lengthen the time so that the inside bakes completely.

11. Cool on a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes. You can serve them immediately or put them in an air tight container

[starskyandfetch-blog]

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My version of "buy me roses" 🌹 #myfridaynight #baking101 #rosesformybaby

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Is this what cool kids post and tag #photography ? #kasilife

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Besos! 💃😘

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Made these for my gorgeous housemate @nappyhairednegro! Happy birthday for yesterday my dear angel! You rock my microwave heated socks 😉 #bakedwithaburnthand #swissmeringue #strawberrylemonfrosting #cupcakes #baking #21beech

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Ciabatta French toast, mascarpone, nutmeg and strawberry jam :) #foodgasm #foodporn

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There's only one way to spoil the birthday girl @noloandhearts ❤️ this cupcake is called the little miss mascarpone ;) #foodgasm #foodporn #oreo #magicfrosting

[doubledini]

PROZAC FOR EVERYONE! :)

I woke up feeling exhausted and my day had not even started. I looked at my phone, the time was 6:45. No messages, no missed calls, no tweets, no emails. I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. This continued for weeks. I didn't care that I might lose my DP, meaning I would be unable to write exams because of my poor lecture attendance.

It changed overnight. Before this all happened, I was up by 8am everyday, spent my whole day on campus and only got home at 9pm most times. I knew something was wrong when I had gone a week without attending lectures, only going to tutorials.

When I was diagnosed with depression, I was relieved. I knew I had been suffering from it since I was 14. I almost failed school and didn't make it to the next grade. My parents were on my ass every weekend. My phone was taken away, I wasn't allowed to go out. My punishment was not helping at all. Letting me be more anti-social was helping the depression sink into my veins making sure it never makes its way out.

–

I was told my medicine would only start working after 2-3 weeks so I had to stay home and miss school. It was fun being home actually, seeing all my friends more and just not doing anything really. Eventually the anxiety came back when I realised how much worked I missed. Coming back to school was so stressful, I still cried myself to sleep. My deadlines were barely extended and lectures were on my ass about admin problems.

I didn't even realise my mood had lifted because I was so stressed. I hadn't stopped drinking, I wasn't going to gym or even eating well. When I met with my psychologist, I finally found someone who GOT ME. Instead of asking me how I felt about shit, she would reply “that sucks” or “you're only hurting yourself”. She let me find my own way to the solutions by letting me vent out and eventually fix myself.

I am still highly dependent on prozac. If I go off it, I am sure I will die. I have stopped drinking, I am officially “banting” and trying to go to gym at least 4 times a week and if not, I'm carrying what feels like 100kg of camera equipment up a hill. I'm sure that counts as cross-fit.

This one magic pill changed my life. Together with my shrink that I pay way too much money for only to vent to someone who can't tell anyone cause its law. I believe in science and I believe in God. I am a strong Christian and like to live my life with Christian values. I may not be a virgin but I feel like I'm doing well in the world that we live in compared to many other people (hit twitter for some examples). This mixture of science and my faith has helped me get closer to restoring myself and I will be entirely grateful to the scientific genius that discovered this anti-depressant. I should probably Google his name. I hope he's German.

Dreams crushed. Of course he's Asian. Well to Mr. David. T. Wong, you've done an amazing job at saving this world.  

[doubledini]

Nelson Mandela Day Vibes. Cupcakes and cake for staff at the Little Company of Mary #67minutes #cupcakes #anotherfoodpost #selfie #MandelaDay

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Repost from @mokwena_ Oreo cheesecake brownies made my @justtshepi and myself #AnotherFoodPost #Oreo #Cheesecake #Brownies #foodporn #instafood #baking #gloriousfood #homemade

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My moms first nursing textbook from 1983. Love finding old things 😬 #nursing #midwives #tbt #somethingold #somethingblue #royalcollege

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Best cupcakes ever!! #homemade #cupcakes #vanilla #BestFrostingEver #baking #foodporn #instafood

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Yes! Finally 😍😍 thanks @just_iviwe :) #strawberriesAndCream #DulcheDeLeche #icecream #foodporn #wintergoods #HaagenDasz

[doubledini]

Born Free - Yamkela Mdaka

Report by Dineo Mokwena

As one of my TV journalism assignments, we had to produce a short piece with the theme "Born Free". 

Yamklea Mdaka is a second year journalism student at Rhodes and resides in Pretoria. 

[doubledini]

#cake #cake #cake 😍 throwback to Fentse's birthday cake, made by yours truly. #chocolate #oreo #creamcheese #frosting #baking #cravings 😩