Gluten Free (South African) Rusk Recipe

My lovely South African husband loves it when I make him gluten free rusks. So, I thought I'd post my gluten free rusk recipe, as it took me quite a search to find a recipe, and then a few goes to adapt it to our liking. It's based it off a family recipe combined with this recipe, (with a number of changes) and out of my head.

A couple of things worth noting, even before I had little-miss-e I would set aside a whole afternoon to make these (it takes even longer now). So they are quite an undertaking, but well worth it!

Here it is: Gluten Free Rusks (all measurements are Aust. Standard)

Egg Mix:
600 ml buttermilk
4 eggs
1 Cup raw sugar

Seed Mix:
1/2 C currants
1/2 C pumpkin seeds
2 C gluten free cornflakes

Oil Mix:
1 C oil
225g melted butter

Flour Mix:
3 1/2 C white rice flour
6 1/2 C Gluten free plain flour
10 teasp xanthum gum
10 teasp baking powder
3 teasp salt

Ok so, place flour mix in a big bowl. Add seed mix and fold through. Make a well in the middle and add the egg mix and the oil mix. Stir through, then knead gently with your hands. It should be a soft dough, which kind of feels velvety from the buttermilk (I quite like the way it feels, does it show?).





Once mixed, roll into slightly-bigger-than-golf-ball sized balls and place nestled into tins lined with baking paper.

Bake for about an hour and ten minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (until golden on top).







Remove from tins and gently halve each ball, using a fork.
Place on trays and bake again at 100 degrees Celsius for 2-3 hours, until nicely brown.

Wait until cool and serve with coffee for dunking!

And then all you gluten free-bies can have:

'n lekker koppie koffie met beskuit op die stoep 
(a delicious cup of coffee and a rusk on the veranda)

rusks (but not the baby kind)

The other morning as I was getting out of bed, I asked my lovely (but not a morning person) husband whether I could get him anything. 'Coffee...' was his mumbled reply, then after a pause he added '...and rusks.' 'Rusks!' I exclaimed - I knew we'd bought all that rice flour for a reason, but I'd completely forgotten that I could make rusks. I then got pretty excited, and my lovely husband rolled back over and listened to me bubble over with the idea of making rusks. I've made them before, and in more recent times discovered and then adapted a gluten free recipe, but I haven't made them since I was pregnant. Actually, I was planning on making them when I was about 38 weeks, I'd even bought the buttermilk - but then little-miss-e arrived a little early and bang went that idea.

But getting back to this week: I spent Wednesday making rusks - for those who've never experienced them, rusks are from South Africa (like my lovely husband). They are basically a biscuity-type thing that is very hard and very dry, and the only way to eat them is to dip them in your morning coffee. They are delicious and lots of fun to make, but do take a lot of time. And as I discovered, even more time when one factors a 7-month old into the mix.

So I'd love to say that on Thursday morning I was able to present my lovely husband with coffee and rusks in bed. However, he got up before me to go to the gym, so instead I enjoyed coffee and rusks myself whilst feeding little-miss-e her breakfast.

mmm, gluten free rusks... - I'll post the recipe soon!

(not quite) wordless wednesday

I'm not feeling so wordless today. In fact instead I've got lots to share. My this week has been fabulous so far, how 'bout yours?

Sunday night, while skyping my lovely husband's family I made pesto...

It was hot hot hot 'round Melbourne town, so my lovely husband and I took little-miss-e to the beach on Monday morning. It was so much fun! She loved the water, and for the first time sat on the sand in with the little waves rippling over her legs and splashed and splashed!



Then, Monday afternoon, my sister and my lovely husband had conspired to give my an afternoon off! My sister came round and whisked me away to an afternoon of cafes and op-shops, whilst my lovely husband stayed home and looked after little-miss-e.

Yesterday was full of jam making, finally. I'm not sure how many figs I ate, but I only ended up with 1.7kgs of figs to make into jam. Its a sweet sticky messy process, but the end result 'little bird burnt fig jam' (named in honour of a new little bird we know) should certainly be worth it!

As for today, well - there's great stuff going on, but I'll tell you all about that another time...

Hope your week so far has been just as great!

its that time of year again...

fig emergency time of year!

My friend's abundant fig tree is ripening up and I was over there today picking these delicious figs (and more).
 
They'll be turned into burnt fig jam shortly, probably tomorrow. Otherwise we will have eaten so many there will be none left for jam!

ahh, finally some time...

I can finally snatch a few moments this morning. The house is quiet, the bathroom clean, breakfast cleaned up and the teething little-miss-e is still sleeping. Teething is such a challenge, hey...  Still, she sleeps now and so lets just enjoy the silence.

Ahh...

In other news, I've been pottering along. See I thought I'd made enough squares for my current baby blanket project. But a few weeks ago I laid it out alongside little-miss-e's blanket and realised it was too small and I had to make another 25 squares. 25... So I've been trundling along making more squares, but I'm only up to 11 extras. And my friend is due in 4 weeks. I am getting the feeling this is one of those projects that will be a little late...

I'd love to chat some more, but I hear stirrings... I'll pop 'round and visit your blog, really I will, I miss hanging out with you. Maybe if these teeth ever arrive!

wordless wednesday

(sorry that I still don't have time for words, gosh we are so busy busy busy round here!)

just because

Just because I have at least five other projects on the go...



And because I am not feeling well...

And because little-miss-e is teething and starting to experience separation anxiety...



And because I should be doing my tax...

 

I made another baby proof necklace...

night flowering cacti

I inherited lots of things from my nan including, randomly a cactus plant. I've had it in my garden for a couple of years now, and not really paid it much attention. Until this week that is. For this week we noticed that it had sprouted - this weird long growth, and then it grew a bud on the end. It just stayed like that for a few days, then the night before last my lovely husband called me outside. It had finally opened up.

It was so pretty and smelt so lovely. We brought it inside to get a better pic.

And I'm so glad we saw it! By the next morning it was already starting to wilt, and with the heavy rain last night, it is now looking very sad and sorry for itself. But for that one night - it was a random thing of beauty. Lovely...