Buttermilk Rusk Recipe

Visits to my hairdresser are always social affairs and more like going for coffee with the girls than the tedious few hours it used to be in an impersonal salon...

I digress. Nicky needed ideas for her son's South African Food day at school (he's a gorgeous grade one). We settled on rusks which means a blog post is necessary! I haven't been avoiding blogging, I've just been very busy living (met a new man, introduced him to salad, planted out a few hundred seedlings, trained for an adventure race, cooked many meals, put all my 'extra' stuff into storage, tidied up my house, ran a few hundred km, cycled a few hundred more, etc.)

We always have rusks in the house (it's one of Ouma's responsibilities to keep her busy - which has become my responsibility as she's not able to do it alone anymore). We have a few recipes we follow but the most popular (all over SA - the little sister travels and 'pays' for her accommodation at friends in boxes of rusks) by far is a recipe I got from a friend's housekeeper about 15 years ago.


Stina's Rusks

1kg Self raising flour
4 cups NuttyWheat flour (whole wheat)
2 cups sugar
10ml Cream of Tartar
10ml Bicarbonate of Soda
2ml Salt
500g butter or margarine
250ml boiling water
500ml Buttermilk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease a large, square baking tin.

Mix dry ingredients in a big mixing bowl.

Melt butter in another big bowl. Mix in the buttermilk, rinse the buttermilk carton out with the boiling water and add this water to the mix. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until thoroughly blended. Put the mixture into your baking tin and bake for 1 hour.

Remove from the tin and once cool enough to handle cut into fingers and arrange on the wire shelves from your oven - the more gaps there are between the rusks the faster they dry. Reduce the oven temperature to 70-100 degrees and return the rusks until they are dry throughout. 

Store in an airtight container once cool.

Variations can include adding pretty much any seeds, raisins, dried fruit, etc.

Dunk in tea or coffee :)

Happiness Is...

Heading into the garden with my cup of tea yesterday morning I couldn't help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world! How can you feel anything else when you share your morning cuppa with the chickens, bunnies and such pretty flowers and exciting new seedlings? 

After the upheaval of moving the garden from one suburb to another, the veggie boxes are finally installed in their 'forever homes' and filled with straw and chicken litter and potting soil (the idea is that the chicken litter breaks down and the veggies on top grow like they're on steroids!)

The beans are 4 days old and looking strong

The bath full of carrots is looking so promising!

Lettuces just showing their faces in the first veggie box

Lettuces and Beans in the first veggie box

Breakfast

There's something special about breakfast: it sets up the direction for the rest of the day (and if it's a Monday then it's the foundation for the whole week!).

As you already know I'm very conscious of what's in the food we buy and muesli is no exception! I'm always horrified to read the ingredient list - I hate it when there are things in there that I have no idea what they actually are... And the sugar (not usually called "sugar" on the list) and Salt (Sodium Chloride sound like Salt? Honestly now!). Why do breakfast cereals need sugar and salt added? It makes me wonder if the ingredients they put in are inferior and they need the extra flavours to make them palatable... Just a thought!

My mom used to make muesli for my dad when I was little and I remember the yummy smell as if it were yesterday... Given that I have a man who eats muesli every morning (except the ones when there are leftovers from dinner!) and is conscious of what he eats, it made sense to try my hand at making some. I googled muesli recipes and came up almost blank. It's not that there aren't a million recipes, it's just that they're not really for making muesli!

I decided to wing it and the results were most pleasing: I chucked all of my favourite ingredients into a baking tray and put it into the oven at 150 deg until it was toasted, mixing occasionally. The bulk of the muesli was rolled oats. I also added almonds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, linseeds, and coconut. in no particular ratio - just added as much as thought looked about right for how I like the ingredients (more of the ones I really like!). Once it was all toasted I added some dried cranberries. I find these much nicer than raisins and add them after otherwise they dry out and taste yucky (one of the reasons I don't buy muesli with raisins in it).

It tastes great and has no "extra stuff" and nothing I can't identify... Now that's a great breakfast :-)