the easiest biscuits you'll ever make (healthy, sugar and gluten free)

So, there's not been much crafting going on 'round here. Mostly because I am still stuck on the frog/snake puppet and am yet to finish that, or to work out what my next project will be. But also because we have been the house of sickness, on top of my return to work, little-miss-e starting childcare and other adventures in normal life. So, there's not been a lot of craft to show and tell.

But I have been baking, and I wanted to share these biscuits with you. They are easy, healthy, sugar free, gluten free and my one year old LOVES them. Basically they go like this:






Take 2 bananas and a cup of oats*. Mix, spoon onto trays, then bake about 10 min at 180 C...




That's it!

 

I've been making these like crazy. They are super easy! I've added and adapted as I go along. I often reduce the amount of oats and add in other stuff instead - dessicated coconut, almond meal, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds or qunioa flakes... Sometimes I put in a spoon of peanut butter, some currants or cinnamon or vanilla... Given little-miss-e is so little, I tend to make teeny tiny biscuits that are barely a teaspoon-ful. She loves them.

It is worth noting they don't store all that long, a few days at the most. But I pop them in the freezer and then they last and last (at least until we eat them all!) Little-miss-e loves to gnaw on them frozen, or they defrost pretty quickly cos they are so small.

So there you go - the easiest biscuits you'll ever make.

Give them a go!


*NB: Oats are controversial in the gluten free world, but my lovely gluten free husband can eat them, so they are counted as gluten free here on marjoryjane.

Gluten free pizza dough

So I received a request for my Gluten Free Pizza Dough recipe (see my previous post about gluten free pizzas). It is pretty easy to make - we make it in the bread machine using the dough setting. It is a bit of a throw together dough, but it works and turns out delicious!

1 Cup (and a bit, about 1/8C) of water
1 tea salt
1 tea sugar
splash of olive oil
2 3/4 Cups gluten free plain flour
1 tbs yeast
about 3/4 tbs Xanthan Gum

Put all ingredients in bread machine on dough setting. Once done, divide half and roll each half out to make your pizzas.You will probably need a little extra GF flour to dust the rolling pin and your surface with.
We then pre-bake the bases for about 15-min, until they start to go that rosey-pinky-brown, as then the pizzas don't take as long to cook.

Cover with your favourite toppings (one of ours is zucchini, thyme, garlic, olive oil, lemon zest and cheese) and bake until done.

Enjoy!

home made muesli bars (with recipe) (gluten free)

I saw ana over at i made it so post a recipe for granola bars the other day. She made them sound so easy. So after double checking that granola is the same thing as muesli (don't you love it that we supposedly speaking the same language), I decided to try them out.

ana talked about the princples of muesli bars before her recipe, so I just made it up from there. They were easy to convert to gluten free and basically mine went:

1 cup rolled oats*
a handful of sunflower seeds
a handful of pumpkin seeds
a handful of currents, then another for good measure
a handful of dessicated coconut
a drizzle of maple syrup
a couple of handfuls of gluten free plain flour
some raw cashews that I crushed in my mortar and pestle
an egg, then I decided it was too dry, so added another
now it was too wet, so I chucked in a handful of toasted muesli and a bit more flour.

Then in the oven at about 170 degrees for about 30 min.



Not an exact science, but they certainly turned out lovely, with a hint of cinnamon (from the toasted muesli I tossed in at the end). The only issue is that they have turned out a little on the hard side, so little-miss-e, being nearly 1 and only having 4 teeth found them tricky to manage. I am hoping they will soften up in the next few days (if they last that long...)

Thanks ana!

*note: there is some contention as the whether oats are gluten free - my lovely husband can eat them fine, so we seem to think that they are.

Gluten free malva pudding recipe

My lovely-(gluten-free)-husband is not from 'round these parts. The other day I had to explain to him the entire story of 'The Man from Snowy River' (though at least he did already know about Banjo Patterson - as in: "didn't he write some poems or something?"). Anyway, I digress...

My lovely-(gluten-free)-husband is not from 'round these parts. And as such, we expected some cross-cultural issues to crop up from time to time (see above). But there have also have been unexpected cross-cultural delights. These include being introduced to a whole cuisine, and for me, especially a whole new range of baking and dessert delights. Rusks are one example, and Malva pudding is another, (oh and milk tart, but I'll talk about that another day)

Malva (pronounced mulf-fah) pudding is fantastic! It is also known as brown pudding, and is easy and delicious, just the perfect winter dessert. This recipe here is adapted from some close family friend's. I've made it gluten free and reduced the sugar a bit (as it is quite a sweet dessert). I made this the other day as we were taking dessert to a friends, and everyone had seconds, some even had thirds - so there was none left for a pic!

So without any further ado: Gluten free malva pudding

1 cup Gluten Free Plain Flour
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup raw sugar
1 Tbs butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 1/2 Tbs apricot jam
300 ml milk
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Sauce
375ml evaporated milk (Ideal Milk)
1/2 cup sugar
125g butter or margarine


Method
Oven at 180 °C
Mix Cake flour & salt together. Add Sugar and mix. Rub in butter.
Beat eggs and jam together and mix with milk.
Mix in flour mixture.
Mix bicarb and vinegar and mix into flour mix.
Put in pan and bake for 20-30 minutes.
Sauce
Heat up all ingredients for syrup, until sugar and butter is melted, but do not boil.
Pour over hot pudding and leave to stand for syrup to draw in cake.
(Eat with cream or ice cream or custard or all three!)

Enjoy!

Amazing French Fudge Cake

Ok, so this cake is amazing! There is no other way to describe it. It is amazingly easy, amazingly gluten free (amazingly you'd never notice) and amazingly delicious. In fact it has trumped every other cake I make (to the point that it is the only cake my lovely husband ever chooses!). It's so amazing you don't even need a photo! (Which you can also read as "it's in the oven at the moment and I haven't taken a pic of it yet"). The recipe comes from an amazing friend, but is on a scrappy bit of paper and I always struggle to find it and then worry that maybe I've lost it. So I thought I'd share it here with you and then I won't lose it and you get the chance to make it too!

Amazing French Fudge Cake

Gently melt together:

• 200g dark chocolate
• 180g butter
• 3/4 C caster sugar

Mix well, then add

• 3 tbls gluten free self raising flour (or you could use normal flour) and mix well
• Add 3 eggs and mix well

Place in greased cake tin and cook for about 10 min at 200 degrees Celsius.
Reduce heat to 180 degrees C and cook for a further 30 min.
Turn off oven but leave the cake in the oven for a further 10 min.
Once cool, cut into squares and dust with icing sugar.

Amazing!

rsi and gluten free bread

Well, I've been on essential-only duties for the last week or two as I managed to flare up my RSI. So, try as I might, I just couldn't add crochet to my "essential" list and so have been craving the creating. It has pretty much settled down now, so I am back with the hook making something entirely new but more on that another time.

Whilst I have been out of crochet action, there are a number of other things that stayed on my essential duties list. And one of those is making gluten free bread. Having a bread maker (which I have due to said RSI), makes making bread easy and gluten free bread is easy too.



I make this one at least once a week. It is a combination/made by me recipe loosely based on a gluten free recipe from the book that came with my Breville bread maker. I've been playing around with gluten free breads and bread mixes for a while, and this is hands down the easiest one I make. Here's how:

Rice Flour Gluten Free Bread

In a measuring jug mix:

• 400ml (approx) of water with 2 tbls of Greek yoghurt to make a total of 450ml of yoghurty-water

add:

• 3 tbls oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar 
• 1 tbls golden syrup (or you could use honey)

in a large bowl mix:

• 2 1/4 C white rice flour
• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1 tbls Xantham gum
• 2 tsp yeast
• 1 small handful of gluten free seed mix (or pumpkin seeds)
• 1 tsp salt

add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Spoon into bread tin. Put bread maker on the largest loaf setting with a dark crust (my machine has a 1250g setting). Press go and walk away. Come back when finished and enjoy your bread!

 
As with most GF breads, this works better reheated as toast the day after making.

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!

wordless wednesday

 

you're never to young to start...

At 5months old, little-miss-e makes her first attempt at gluten free bread

 (sorry for the unintentional product placement in the background)

And given how December looks for us (a 20hr trip home, followed by jet lag, a long drive, a family wedding then Christmas), this may well be my last post for the year. So Merry Christmas to all!

sour cherry pudding (converted to gluten free)

 mmm, this is one of our go-to desserts. I always keep a jar of sour cherries in the cupboard for "emergencies." We had one such "emergency" this week - dinner with a friend we hadn't seen in such a long time.

The original recipe is from here.I make a few changes, the main one being using a jar of morello (sour) cherries rather than the tinned cherries the recipe states. Since it already has the almond meal in it, it is easily converted to gluten free - I simply replace the SR flour with GF SR flour. Oh, and obviously, I leave it the right way up...

The one this about it though, is that in our house it tends to be called "shower cherry pudding." Why are the words "sour" and "cherry" so had to say? Go on, say "sour cherry" three times fast - see if you don't end up with a shower cherry too!

my creative space (with gluten free nutty chocolate slice)

It feels a bit like it has been one of those weeks. It's been really busy, and thinking about posting today in "my creative space" I wasn't sure I had anything creative to talk about. It's been a week of work, and washing and breastfeeding classes, and dinners with friends. All of which have meant I've felt like I've had limited time to create.

 But then again... I did finally finish sewing together the strips of squares for my baby blanket. And after avoiding dealing with the ends deliberating, I decided to edge the blanket before I finish off the ends. I was inspired by a lovely blogger from last week's creative spaces (I'm so sorry, I can't remember who it was - I've looked, but if I find you this in week's spaces, I'll link you up!) and have decided to try doing a scalloped edge. This is a first for me, as previously, I have always simply chained around the edges. Wish me luck.

I've also been creative in the kitchen. See, I get home from work pretty exhausted these days, so my lovely husband does pretty much all the cooking in our place at the moment. Although I have been stretching my baking fingers this week and make some Nutty Chocolate Slice - partly for a work colleague, who was having a bad week, and the rest has gone in the freezer to serve to our visitors when our little one is born.

I thought I'd share the recipe (given to me from a friend), as it is incredibly simple, fantastically tasty and gluten free (but without any fancy ingredients).

Nutty Chocolate Slice

1 cup chopped nuts (I use almonds, but any nuts will work)
1 cup choc chips
1 cup currants (or sultanas - whatever you've got)
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 tin sweetened condensed milk

Mix all ingredients together.
Put in a greased, lined lamington (slice) tin.
Bake covered @ 190 deg Celsius for 20min
Uncover and bake @ 170 deg for 15-20.
Cool in fridge and cut when cold.


So it seems I've had a creative week after all! How 'bout you - are you joining in with the creativity?

what better way to celebrate...

With our first wedding anniversary this week, I thought what better way to celebrate than with:

gluten free mud cake (made from here, using GF flour), and:

more of my caramel slice (made from here, again replacing with GF flour). The same slice I made and made and made for guests at our wedding!

Lovely!

What is your favourite way to celebrate special occasions? What do you love to bake?

gluten free excitment

eeek! i'm so excited! check this out:

it's pizza dough. and look at this:

see it's not just any pizza dough, but this baby is gluten free! i've been making gluten free pizza dough for awhile now, and each time it has turned out somewhere in between cake batter and a very wet scone dough. sticky, impossible to roll. i had to coat my hands in flour and press it out into shape. but last night - it made a ball. and rolled out beautifully and even draped properly. 

all thanks to my new find. i heard about this ages ago, but had no idea where to get it. after talking with sandrine, i actually decided to see if i could find some, and in the end found it at the supermarket!

after demanding admiration for my dough far and wide, i did eventually make the dough into pizza. mmm gluten free pizza goodness...

 

mmm gluten free goodness

so, with the encouragement of sandrine, i have been experimenting with gluten free. and its actually turned out easier (and tastier) than i imagined. so here you go:

gluten free potato and sour cream muffins (adapted from this book)

2 medium sized potatoes, mashed
2 eggs
1 cup milk
3/4 cup of sour cream
60g melted butter
315g gf self raising flour
1/4 teasp paprika
salt and pepper

mix mashed potato, eggs, milk, sour cream and butter in bowl. add flour and spices.mix until combined. 

place into greased trays (i use the paper muffin cases as otherwise my muffins always stick), and bake for 25 min at 180 degrees C. 

they are great with soup - as in "who needs bread!" great.