AMAZING RUSKS -- THESE ARE HEALTH RUSKS AND ARE AMAZING BECAUSE THEY ARE SO EASY TO BAKE -- SEPTEMBER 2017

How to make Amazing Health Rusks.  

The original recipe is from Pat. I have often had Pat's rusks at the end of a run where she provides us with coffee and rusks  -- at Hobie Beach Saturday morning runs.

Peter Giddy is a Tour Guide for Port Elizabeth; Garden Route; Addo Elephant and other wildlife reserves.  He also does Hotel and other transfers.
Peter Giddy Guided Tours in association with SA Guided Tours.
peter.giddy@gmail.com

It helps if you have an assistant like I had here with Thomas.
Purchase the required ingredients -- I usually double up on everything so that the time in the oven is best served.   But mix each batch separately otherwise you lose the accuracy of mix.

This recipe is for one full (large) oven sized baking tray.

 Bran Rich Self Raising flour.  The rusks become a bit more flaky than if you use fine wheat flour but I think that they may be a bit healthier.

4 X crumbled Weet Bix (or about a cup and a half of All Bran flakes)

Sunflower and Pumpkin Seeds -- a nice handful of each -- adds a special texture to the rusk.  Probably the most economic place to buy these is at a "Montagu" shop.

Mix the Self Raising flour and 4 Weet Bix (or you may prefer All Bran Flakes).  Add a bit of salt.
Then I like to add -- Pumpkin Seeds& Sunflower Seeds. You could add Raisins or anything else you think will make the rusks special. The seeds give the rusks a nice crunchy texture.  Raisins tend to dry out and so you cannot eat the rusk unless you have "Dunked" it into your coffee.

500ml of Buttermilk.

Four Eggs

Mix the Buttermilk with 4 eggs in a separate bowl

 Only use baking Margarine.  We need 250g for one batch of Rusks

 OR you can use Butter but a bit more expensive and I cannot really taste the difference.

Brown sugar sounds better than "refined white sugar".  We need just one cup to be melted with the Marge
Use 250g of "Margarine to bake" or you can use butter
And a cup of Brown sugar  (sounds healthier if you say Brown sugar!)
Melt slowly over the stove.  If you melt too quickly the sugar tends to burn.

Mix the Buttermilk and eggs into the Flour until it has "bound".
Then add the melted ingredients (Better if they are cooled) and mix well.

And that is your mixture.  Easy!

 Large oven tray for one batch. If you have two of these or perhaps two half size then you can make two batches at once and put all into the oven

 The oven is best if it is a baking or convection oven.  The whole process is done at lower heats and is a fairly slow process so you may find yourself needing an additional bottle of wine for that evening.

The finished product.  I use these ice cream containers to keep the rusks fresh.

The oven tray should be greased to stop the rusks sticking to the pan.
Put the mixture onto the pan and flatten evenly.
Place into the baking oven at a low temperature (140) for about 45 minutes.
Remove and cut the Rusks into Rusk size biscuits -- does not have to be precise and any size works well.  At this stage you don't move the rusks.
Put back into the over for another 45 minutes also at 140 degrees C

Now comes the tricky part  -- You have to turn the rusks (one at a time) over so that the stodgy side faces upwards.
And back into the oven at a low low heat. Can be in the oven for a couple of hours and that is why I tend to make two batches at once.  
And another trick is to allow the rusks to dry out but don't burn them.

Once I have dried the rusks out so that there is no more stodginess; I use Ice Cream containers to store them. Or any closed Tupperware kind of container does the trick.

In case you are NOT South African and do not know what Rusks are -- they are a coffee dunking biscuit.  But please be careful -- they tend to be extremely morish.

Good Luck!