The rusk (know as Beskuit in Afrikaans) dates back to early South African settlers. Today there are many varieties including sweet and healthy options.
A brief history of the rusk
Making them is pretty simple: balls of dough are packed into loaf tins and baked in the oven then separated and dried out completely in a warm oven. In the USA this is similar to “double baked” and in fact the word biscuit was derived from the French term for twice-baked. French soldiers were sent to war with hard bread, which was called “Biscuit de guerre” – a hard, almost inedible biscuit made from flour and water.
The first rusk recipe shows up in the 1761 book “De Volmaakte Hollandsche Keukenmeid” but rusks were already being made by the women of the Cape (South African Cape Town area) and were sold to the sailors and ship passengers and expeditions going North into Southern Africa.
Rusks are no longer hard and inedible but are sweet and can be made with many healthy options such as bran, sunflower seeds, raisins, oats, nuts etc. Rusk are best consumed with a hot cup of tee or coffee and often dunked to soften them up before taking a bite. A favorite for boarding school kids in South Africa was to drop a couple of rusks into cold milk in a carton.
Ingredients
- 4 lbs self-raising flour (wheat flour can be used for a rougher rusk)
- 3/4 lb butter
- 2 cups sugar (use more / less / none – to taste)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 eggs
- 6 cups buttermilk
- 2 tablespoon vanilla essence
Instructions:
- Grate the butter into the flour/salt mixture and mix through with fingers (it can be melted to help mix in – this will create a finer mixture and ultimate texture).
- Beat the eggs, add the buttermilk, mix and then add to flour mixture. Mix together so that mixture is little runny, but still can be kneed.
- Make little balls (slightly bigger than a golf ball) with mixture and place them (touching) into a greased bread pan.
- Bake for 25 – 30 minutes in the oven at a temperature of 400 °F
- When your rusks have cooled slightly, break (or cut) them into pieces and dry overnight in a cool oven by placing the rusks directly on the oven grill or baking rack. Set the oven on lowest temperature (usually 170 F or 100 C) and keep the oven door slightly open (e.g. cracked open an inch) to help air dry the rusks (wedging a teaspoon at the top of the oven door will keep it open).
For a slightly more healthy flavor try these ingredients to make Muesli rusks:
- 2 cups nutty wheat flour
- 2 cups cake flour
- 4 teaspoons Baking Powder (if you don’t use self raising flour)
- 3/4 lb butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 Eggs
- 4 cups Buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
- 4 cups muesli of your choice
- Add flax seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and raisins to your liking
Follow the same directions for mixing and baking as above.
Let us know how your rusks turn out and if you have any tweaks that you used!