Buttermilk Rusks

• Vegetarian

• Refrigerated

  • 1 Egg, large

• Condiments

  • 500 ml Milk mixed with 3 tbles vinegar or lemon juice, full fat

• Baking & Spices

  • 1 kg Cake flour
  • 3/4 tsp Salt
  • 1 1/2 cups Sugar, brown white or light
  • 3 Tbles baking powder, level
  • 1 Tbles caramel essence or vanilla essence

• Dairy

  • 250 g Butter
  • 500 ml Buttermilk

Found on tastyrecipes.sapeople.com

Description

Ingredients

• 1 kg cake flour
• ¾ tsp salt
• 3 level tbles baking powder (not baking soda)
• 500 ml buttermilk OR
• 500 ml full fat milk mixed with 3 tbles vinegar or lemon juice (buttermilk)
• 1 large egg beaten
• 1½ cups sugar (white or light brown)
• 1 tbles caramel essence or vanilla essence
• 250gr cold butter, cut into small blocks

Directions

• Turn oven onto very low heat about 150°F (65 C).
• Spray 2 loaf tins with non-stick baking spray or grease with butter. You need 2 cookie sheets for drying out rusks at end, ungreased.
• If you are not using buttermilk, add the vinegar or lemon juice to the full cream milk, stir and let it stand for about 5 minutes.
• Sift flour, salt & baking powder together.
• Rub butter into flour until it looks like bread crumbs. (you can use a food processor on pulse mode for this step).
• Transfer breadcrumb mixture to a large bowl.
• Beat egg,add buttermilk and essence to egg mixture, add sugar and stir.
• Add to dry ingredients and mix in with a knife.
• Knead well by hand until dough reaches the elastic stage. If the dough is too sticky on your hands, just sprinkle a little flour in until dough is no longer sticky.
• Roll mixture into sausage shapes (about the length of your thumb and a bit thicker) and loosely pack into tins, OR halve dough and shape into 2 loaves in tins then cut to size when cooked, whichever you prefer. (I do the loaves)
• Put tins with mixture in oven for ± 45 minutes at 150°F (65 C) to rise.
• Remove from oven.
• Set oven to 350°F (180 C) when oven reaches this temperature, bake for 40 - 45 minutes.
• Set oven to lowest heat again, about 150°F (65 C).
• Turn out loaves to cool.
• When cool gently break balls apart, or slice loaves into slices about ¾ inch thick then slice these slices into ¾ inch fingers – if possible use an electric knife.
• Place in a single layer on cookie sheets with a little space between each rusk, place in oven at 150 F (65 C) to dry for about 8 hours, turn rusks one turn about every 2 hours.
• Allow to cool, put into air-tight tins or air-tight plastic bags.