​Secrets first: we cook apple slices in a small quantity of water. These apple slices go into the bottom of the cake tin.Bake a day before you want to serve it to allow the flavour and texture to develop.
Geheime eerste: ons kook appelskywe (so 2 appels) in bietjie water en sit dit onder in die koekpan. Bak dit ten minste een dag voor jy dit wil bedien sodat die geure/tekstuur kan ontwikkel.



Initially, apples were farmed on the grounds of Fairview. We were told by old doctor Tiensie Stander that when the ground for the development of Bergsig was subdivided, serious consideration was given to the name Appelboord, but because the apple orchards had to go for the development it was decided to name the new suburb Bergsig. Today we have apple tree left on the yard and it hardly ever bears more than 5 apples per season!
First things first:
Place ½ packet Tennis Biscuits biscuits in a plastic bag and roll to fine crumbs with a rolling pin (a bottle also does the trick)
Add to 80ml melted butter and press the mixture onto the base of a lined 20cm springform cake tin. Make sure the sides are well coated with Spray 'N Cook. Refrigerate.
Preheat the oven to 160°C ;
In a bowl: 3 cups ricotta cheese (600g), 125ml cream, 180ml castor sugar, 15ml cake flour, 30ml cornflour (Maizena) + 3 extra large eggs Beat together until smooth (bearing in mind that ricotta is a crumbly "cheese" and the texture will remain slightly crumbly, but smooth)
Stir in juice and zest of one lemon
Pour into cake tin and bake for one hour ; then increase temperature to 180°C and bake a further 10 minutes. Take out of oven, put on rack and allow to cool in cake tin, remove and keep in fridge overnight. Serve at room temperature (that's important!)
Let us make that a Banting recipe:
Preheat the oven to 160°C ;
In a bowl:
3 cups ricotta cheese (600g |750 ml ) 62ml is 1  = 12 dairy fat portions
125ml cream 30ml is 1 daily fat = 4 dairy fat portions
180ml castor sugar
15ml cake flour, 30ml cornflour (Maizena) + 3 extra large eggs Beat together until smooth (bearing in mind that ricotta is a crumbly "cheese" and the texture will remain slightly crumbly, but smooth)
Stir in juice and zest of one lemon
Pour into cake tin and bake for one hour ; then increase temperature to 180°C and bake a further 10 minutes. Take out of oven, put on rack and allow to cool in cake tin, remove and keep in fridge overnight. Serve at room temperature (that's important!)

​Guests I'll always remember?
Shortly after I opened doors I received a booking for three policeman to share the family room. Now that sounded a bit weird, but the agent confirmed: three gentlemen and they had to share a room and could I please confirm the private entrance and secure parking.


It was just getting dusk when my front door bell rang and there were the three policeman. Beach-bum impersonater smelling of beer, gangster wannabe's as charming as can be and parked in my driveway - a dented rust tin of a Kombi van.


On my request to see some ID, the one chap flipped open his ID badge, but much too fast for me to really see whether it was authentic. He then explained that they had to share the room because they were here to assist the local police and that they were transporting ammunition that they were not allowed to leave in their vehicle. That just freaked me out! Here I had to watch three men store an arsenal of guns under my antique wrought iron and brass four poster bed.


When my husband returned from work, I related my story of woe. He took one look at the van with the tinted windows and declared: yes, tonight they are going to rob a bank and it will be all over the papers, 'robbers stayed at four star guest house in George'.At that stage he was still not so convinced about this guest house thing that I wanted to try, so did not offer me too much in the line of sympathy.


I decided to phone the local police station to find out if they were expecting three policemen and couldn't say that I was surprised that they were not. They kindly offered to send a patrol car around a few times in the night, but did not think it was wise to confront the men.
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They had paid cash on arrival and were now officially paying guests.Thankfully I had no other guests to worry about and with hubby happily snoring away, I spent half the night peering into the parking lot to see if the kombi van was still there. The next morning my three bright eyed and bushy tailed policemen,once again in civilian dress, tucked away heartily into bacon and eggs, served them by a not-so bright eyed and bushy tailed hostess.


With great relief I saw them off. Within minutes I got a phone call from the local police station to say that I had nothing to fear - they were expecting three officers, but that the police station had not been notified in advance as it was an undercover operation.

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When Desmond came home for lunch it was to find a note on the table telling him to make himself a sandwich and not to wake me up - I was making up for lost sleep!