South Africa's Favourite Coffee accompaniment, Rusks! Buttermilk Rusks & Buttermilk,Lavender, Walnut & Fig Rusks!

Left suitable more for HIgh Tea where as the right is more rustic and home made look.

Here it is, my rusks recipe I promised you earlier today. I'm going to give you two different variations today, one is a very popular flavour amongst South Africans and the other one is more of a personal preference. The first recipe is a Buttermilk Rusk recipe and the second one is a Walnut and Dried Fig recipe. If I were to have the buttermilk rusk I would go with coffee instead of tea and visa versa with the walnut and fig rusk. You can make these rusks look rustic just for you and your family or you could make them nice and edgy for a High Tea party on a Sunday Afternoon.   

Buttermilk Rusks:  (this is for a large batch, they are easily stored in an air tight container or glass jar.) 

Ingredients 

• 1.5 kg Plain White Flour
• 400g Sugar 
• 20g Honey
• 375g Soft Butter 
• 4 Large Eggs 
• 500ml Buttermilk
• 1 tsp Salt 
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract 
• 4 Lavender Sprigs (If you would like, you could use this for a nice High Tea party as well) 

Method

1. Place the flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl and then add the butter, start to rub the butter into the dry ingredients till it resembles sand.
2. Mix all your wet ingredients together and give it a good whisk so everything is well mixed together (if you're using lavender, place butter milk and lavender into a pot and place onto medium heat. Once it starts to simmer remove from heat and allow to infuse for 20 minutes. Once 20 minutes have passed strain butter milk and allow to cool before adding to the other ingredients). 
3. Now add your wet ingredients to the butter and flour mix and knead till you have a smooth dough.
4. Take a large shallow oven tray and grease well with butter ( should be about 3 cm deep).
5. Now take enough dough to fill the whole tray about 2 cm high, flatten with your hands so its even through out the whole tray. 
6. Now using a knife, cut rusks of 1 cm by 3 cm (or which ever size you prefer). 
7. Place into preheated oven of 180˚C/356˚F for 45 minutes or till golden brown.
   
8. Once ready and out of the oven, allow to cool,  then cut rusks again and place onto wire cooling racks. Place back into preheated oven of 100˚C/212˚F (or the lowest temp your oven can go) for  6 - 8 hours (over night if lower than 100˚C) 
   
9. The final product should be completely dried out and hard, perfect for soaking up some coffee or tea. 

Walnut and Dried Fig
Ingredients

• 1 kg Plain White Flour
• 375 g Soft Butter
• 250 g Walnuts (roughly chopped) 
• 200 g Dried Figs (roughly chopped) 
• 3 Large Eggs 
• 300 g Sugar 
• 50 g Honey
• 200 ml Buttermilk
• 200 ml Milk
• 1 tsp Salt 
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract 

Method 

1. Place the flour, sugar, walnuts and salt into a mixing bowl and then add the butter, start to rub the butter into the dry ingredients till it resembles sand.
   
2. Mix all your wet ingredients together as well as the figs and give it a good whisk so everything is well mixed together (allow for mix to stand for 5 minutes just so that the figs re hydrate a little bit). 
3. Now add your wet ingredients to the butter and flour mix and knead till you have a smooth dough (while you knead you might find that the walnuts and figs tend to fall out, don't worry about that just stick them right back in). 
4. Take a large shallow oven tray and grease well with butter (should be about 3 cm deep).
5. Take enough dough to fill the whole tray about 2 cm high, flatten with your hands so its even through out the whole tray. 
6. Now using a knife, cut rusks of 1 cm by 3 cm (or which ever size you prefer). 
7. Place into preheated oven of 180˚C/356˚F for 45 minutes, or till golden brown.
   
8. Once ready and out of the oven, allow to cool, then cut rusks again. Place onto wire cooling racks and place back into preheated oven of 100˚C/212˚F (or the lowest temp your oven can go) for  6 - 8 hours (over night if lower than 100˚C) 
   
9. The final product should be completely dried out and hard, perfect for soaking up some coffee or tea. 

Edited by: Monique Boaventura

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