Sunday Bunnies

This is how I find these five bunnies most morning, snuggled up in the sun streaming into their hutch, quietly snoozing and grooming each other. Great way to start the day in your bunny family.Abby (right) has been very aggressive to all the bunnies until she took the two dwarf bunnies under her ear. Here she is sharing breakfast with wee Rosie. It’s so nice to see this four bunny family (Ritchie and Pepper being the rest of the family) take shape.Pepper snoozing on top of Rosie in the doorway of their hutch. These photos don’t show how small, compared to the other bunnies, these two are. But they’re dwarf rabbits and super cute. They were found living on a local soccer field and now they live with me.Pepper is an adventurous bunny. She likes to, and can easily, get out of any of the pens - hopping up over fences and compost bins, squeezing through fences and visiting the neighbours. She always comes home though so I hardly stress about it anymore.About the only thing that got the bunnies out from their snoozing this morning was a bunch of fresh silverbeet. Love how Snowflake (first daughter) has to keep her eyes closed because the sun was so bright this morning. Charlie in the middle and gets first pickings of most meals because he’s the dad, and black-and-white Mops is his other daughter.

Summer is the friendliest of the bunnies. She’s a Flemish Giant and likes to live inside. I like to keep her inside too but she destroyed all the cables behind the television so until I bunnyproof the living room, she’s outside in her own, expansive compound. She, like all the other bunnies, loves silverbeet for breakfast.

Dinner time

Charlies’ girls - pellet time is happy time

Mops

Summer

Richie’s girls - my grey-scale family

Maple Russian Fudge

Maple Russian Fudge

For someone who has “quit sugar” the desire for sweetness is rare these days. Last night though, I had a strong idea that Russian Fudge was what I was hankering for. At least this type of sweet craving means I need to get up, create the food, wait for it to cool before getting to eat it. Is that slightly better than just buying a block of chocolate and over eating that? Probably not in the scheme of the Universe but at the micro-level of the distance between my couch and the stove it seemed to count for a lot.

I Googled for a Russian Fudge recipe and landed on Chelsea Sugar’s version. The butter was already melting into the mountain of sugar in the saucepan before I realised there wasn’t any Golden Syrup in the pantry. Another side effect of the low-to-no sugar lifestyle means sweet staples aren’t replaced as they run out. What to do, what to do?

So this is how I changed the recipe to still statisfy my craving and it turned out great. If you try it, I hope it works great for you too.

NOTE: Don’t rush, no kids around, be prepared - sugar melts at a high temperature and burns human skin with ferocity. Use all the Cautions and Carefuls.

Equipment:

  • Candy themometer
  • 1 tsp vanilla paste (add before beating)
  • 20cm square cake tin
  • Electric hand beater

Ingredients:

  • 3.5 cups sugar
  • 123 g butter
  • 0.5 cup milk
  • 100 g Condensed Milk
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 0.5 tsp salt

Steps:

  1. Grease cake tin with butter. 
  2. Grind a light-medium sprinkle of salt into the bottom of the cake tin.
  3. Put a heavy bottomed saucepan on a medium heat.
  4. Add and melt together the sugar, butter, milk, maple syrup, brown sugar, and salt to the saucepan.
  5. Gently bring to the boil and add candy thermometre.
  6. Stir continuously until the thermometer reads 120 degrees Celcius - the soft ball stage.
  7. Remove from heat and transfer saucepan to heat proof surface (wooden chopping board is best)
  8. Leave for five minutes to cool down slightly before stirring in the vanilla.
  9. Using the electric hand beater, mix until mixture looks creamy and thick and has lost some of its gloss.
  10. Pour into prepared cake tin and leave on chopping board to slowly cool.

These cubes of caramelly sugar really do hit the spot

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