I have tested this recipe many times and each time I tweak it a little as it doesn’t feel quite right. But here it is, I think it has finally reached perfection (well in my rusk world)!
I think the secret is to pre-roast all your nuts and seeds, it just gives it that extra toasted depth of flavour. You could also add in raisins or dried cranberries.
These rusks are super crunchy, light, nutty and leave crumbs all over you, just like a good rusk should!
Yield: 80-100 rusks depending on how you cut them.
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 35-40 minutes plus drying out time (usually overnight)
Ingredients:
4 cups cake flour
50ml baking powder
10ml bicarbonate of soda
10ml salt
4 cups Nutty Wheat
1 cup wheat bran
500g butter
2 cups treacle sugar
*You can also use brown or white sugar, but treacle gives a lovely flavour
500g mixed nuts & seeds – roasted
*You can use any nuts & seeds you like – I always put in linseeds, sunflower & pumpkin seeds, almonds and find that hazelnuts just add that wonderful little bit of decadence!
2 XL eggs
500ml buttermilk
10ml vinegar
Method
- Preheat oven to 180’C.
- Grease a 24cm x 34cm oven pan.
- Sift flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt together. Add nutty wheat and wheat bran and stir to combine.
- Rub the butter into the flour mixture above until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
- Add your pre-roasted mixed nuts and seeds.
- In a separate bowl beat your buttermilk, sugar, vinegar and eggs.
- Fold into your flour mixture until just combined and there are no traces of loose flour.
- Press the mixture into the greased pan and bake until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the mixture comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and allow a few minutes for the pan to cool before removing the rusk cake.
- Remove from pan and cut into finger sized rusks (or larger if you prefer)
- Pack loosely into oven trays (works best on cooling racks inside the trays) and dry out overnight in a 50-70’C oven.
- Your rusks are done when they are dry and crunchy all the way through.
- The best thing about drying overnight is that you wake up to freshly baked rusks to have with your morning tea or coffee!
Food Love,
Tanya