My mother has a bee in her bonnet about making rusks at the moment.  She got this recipe from a friend at work, translated it from Afrikaans into English and is churning them out faster than we can dunk them in a cup of tea!  She maintains they are the best rusks she has ever had, and if you’ve met my mother, you won’t doubt that she has tasted quite a few rusks in her time.  The recipe for these came with a contact about a hundred kilometers outside of Bloemfontein who makes the peculiar rusk-cutting contraption you’ll see in the photo.  I’ve been pretty sceptical about the whole rusk scene since it began at home a few weeks ago, but I must say the cutter is quite genius in design and amazingly there are very few crumbs in the whole process.  Send me your rusk recipes if you’ve got something better, or give these ones a go.  I would love to hear what you think.

The recipe:

Melt on stove, stirring intermittently:

1 ½ C sticky dark  brown sugar [375 ml]

500 g butter

Sift together:

1 kg self raising flour

1 teaspoon salt [5 ml]

1 tablespoon baking powder [15 ml]

Add and mix well:

                12 crushed cakes of weetbix [220 grams]

500 ml [2 C] bran

200 ml sunflower seeds

Stir in melted butter and sugar while warm and mix well.

Beat 2 extra-large eggs.  Add 500 ml buttermilk and mix. 

Then add to the flour mixture, mixing well by hand.

Flatten in pan [33 x 37 cm fits] –  and cut into fingers with cutter if you have one [NEAT AND CRUMBLESS], or wait until the cooking is finished and cut while hot.

Bake at 180 degrees C  for 55 minutes.  [They don’t rise very much.]

Allow to cool slightly.  Break or cut into fingers and dry out for 4 – 5 hours at 100 degrees C.

IF YOU ARE DOUBLING THE RECIPE, DO SO IN TWO SEPARATE MIXING BOWLS – SIMPLER IN THE LONG RUN.

a little post script here – the very fancy rusk tin is available locally from The Baking Tin wholesaler in Ottery.  Here is the link:

http://thebakingtin.co.za/catalog/index.php?cPath=48_84

Cakes & Cookies, General Recipes, tuesday tools