edg3’s Rusk Recipe

Apologies for the delay this post had.

I had a dream a while back of making myself some rusks. I had tons for breakfast last year made by a close family member. I eventually at the end of the year had to stock up on rusks from the shops. I looked around, found a recipe that I liked and adjusted it to my desires.

Ingredients:

• 1Kg self-raising flour
• 3 cups wheat bran
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 1 cup chopped pecan nuts
• 1 cup dates
• 1 tsp salt
• 500g butter softened
• 1.5 cups of sugar
• 4 eggs
• 500ml buttermilk

Now, please note this, try not to be like me and forget to put something in. I forgot the eggs, this is why I have tiny rusks. I still love them, it just happens to be the result.

Prepare the oven, 180 degrees Celcius.

Step one, shown above was mixing the flour, bran, coconut, pecans, and dates in a bowl.

Step two, in another bowl we mix the butter, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Step three, the one I missed, we should mix in the 4 eggs to the butter mix.

Step four, mix in the buttermilk to the butter mix.

Step five, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix.

Take note here, try not to develop the gluten in the flour too much. Slow and steady wins the race. Simply, mix it slowly and carefully. Using your hands is easiest.

Step six, put the mixture in your baking container. Flatten it out to roughly 2 cm so that it covers the entire tray.

Step seven, put it in the oven and let it cook for 45 minutes.

Step eight, leave it to rest. Wait for it to be cool enough for you to handle, be careful when you check the temperature. I left it for roughly 30 minutes and it was lukewarm. Also, turn the oven off to let it cool.

Step nine, when it is cool enough, cut it into squares. Pick the width of the rusks you would like to make.

This is where it lost a little due to leaving the eggs out. The rusks are an average of 2 cm tall, therefore I cut it to make roughly 1.25 cm squares in the tray.

Step ten, heat the oven to 100 degrees Celsius. While it is heating up, take a moment to lay the rusks out in baking trays on their side. They should have a small gap between them.

Take note, they are very soft when picking them up from after step 9. Just be careful, otherwise, you might accidentally ruin a few rusks.

Step eleven, when they are in their trays and you have laid them on their sides you can put it in the oven. It is roughly 6 hours for it to solidify for you.

Let them cool down when they are solid (i.e. when the roughly 6 hours are done). Put them in an air tight container if at all possible for storage.

Hopefully you will enjoy these rusks if you ever one day make them. The last reminder is just don’t forget the eggs (insert the winking emoticon here, or something).

Don’t stress, that’s as far as that emoticon will come through here.