One of the most popular treats for our guests is the South African rusks or Beskuit. It doesn’t matter from which country they are everyone enjoys it. As a child I can remember seeing my mom knead the rusk dough by hand and rolling it into balls and it always looked like a lot of hard work. So it took me a while to be willing to try it here in Israel. Once I mastered up the courage it was a matter of finding the right recipe.
We found a recipe online that looked promising but when we started making it we realised that the buttermilk in Israel is very different to the buttermilk that you can find in South Africa. So since starting to make the rusks we have had to make many adjustments to ensure that our dough is the right consistency. Since then we have also started adding nuts and coconut to our recipe and replacing the white flour with brown flour in order to make a healthier version of the rusk – well I am not so sure as to how healthy it could be because we still add a lot of sugar.
What you need for the white rusks
- 850 grams of white flour
- 2 eggs
- 200 grams of butter (please not margarine) Jacques says that margarine is like plastic.
Make sure that your butter is soft but not melted. We tend to stock up on butter when it’s on sale and keep it in the freezer but this means when we want to make the rusks, we have to take it out beforehand. Sometimes I forget to take out the butter in time and then Jacques will grate the butter with a grater into the flour for me. I refuse to do this because I hate getting my hands full of butter and he is so much stronger than me so for him it is easy to grate the hard butter.
- 30 grams of baking powder
- 250 grams of sugar
- A little bit of salt
- Buttermilk
You will notice that I do not give a measurement for the buttermilk, as I do not measure the buttermilk. It normally 300-400ml. I keep my mixer going on a low speed and slowly add the buttermilk until the dough pulls together so that the dough mixer can start to knead the dough.
What you need for the brown rusks
- 700 grams of flour (about 200-250g white and 450-500g brown)
- Coconut, crushed nuts and seeds of your own choice about 200 grams
If I am being honest I do not really measure the amount of nuts seeds and coconut that I add to the flour, if add until I feel that there is enough to give good taste and texture to the rusk
- 200 grams of butter (please not margarine) Jacques says that margarine is like plastic.
Make sure that your butter is soft but not melted. We keep our butter in the freezer so when we want to make the rusks we have to take it out beforehand. Sometimes I forget to take out the butter in time and then Jacques will grate the butter with a grater into the flour for me. I refuse to do this because I hate getting my hands full of butter and he is so much stronger then me so for him it is easy to grate the hard butter.
- 30 grams of baking powder
- 300 grams of sugar
- A little bit of salt
- Buttermilk
You will notice that I do not give a measurement for the buttermilk, as I do not measure the buttermilk. It normally 300-400ml. I keep my mixer going on a low speed and slowly add the buttermilk until the dough pulls together so that the dough mixer can start to knead the dough.
Of course first put on your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Place your flour (and nut and seed mix if you are making the brown rusk version) into the mixing bowl
Add the sugar and baking powder and salt. Just to make sure that all the dry ingredients are combined. We use a mixer with a dough hook attached and we switch the mixer on for a second or two. You can do this by hand as well.
Add the soft butter to the dry ingredients and start the mixer so that it incorporates the butter with the dry ingredients. If you are mixing and kneading by hand, it’s a good idea to rub the butter and flour together with your fingertips.
Add the eggs and start the mixer again. Once the eggs are mixed in we reduce the speed to 1 and slowly add the buttermilk until the dough is wet and starts to pull together. I do not like a very wet dough because it is difficult to work with and sticks to everything so I pour my buttermilk in bit by bit to avoid adding too much.
Once everything is in and you can see that the dough is being kneaded by the mixer you can put it back on to a higher speed to knead for about 5 to 7 minutes.
Once it is done I give the dough to Jacques who has already greased the rusk pans that we use. We have special rusk pans that has its own cutter.
He then flattens it out and uses a wine bottle (our rolling pin) to smooth out the dough into an even height throughout the pans. The last thing then is to cut the raw dough with the special blade and then into the oven they go for about 1 hour. We rotate our pans every 15-20 minutes to avoid dark spots. If you don’t have this kind of rust pans you can shape the dough into little balls a bit smaller than a golfball and place them in neat straight rows tightly together in a loaf tin. Each ball will end up being one rusk.
When they are finished baking we remove the pans from the oven and let it cool down. Once it has cooled we flip the pans over to allow the “fresh rusts” to drop out of the pan. I keep my hand on the top to prevent it from falling out too fast and breaking. Normally the fresh rusts should release easily. Then we break the rusks into smaller pieces by following the cut lines that we made with the blade. If you made little balls, you can break it on the seams. This is also a great time to enjoy a piece of freshly baked rusks before drying them out. We normally call the kids to come grab a few. Jacques likes to spread a nice thick layer of butter on it. In my family I have to work very fast with this process otherwise my kids and Jacques will finish everything even before the drying out process.
If you didn’t devour all the pieces, you can pack it onto an oven grid and then place it back into the oven on a very low temperature about 80-100 degrees Celsius. As tradition goes you put a wooden spoon into the door of the oven so that it is slightly ajar. To allow it to completely dry out, the drying out process can take 3-6 hours. Be careful that your oven is not too high so that the rusks will not burn.
Once they are completely dry and hard allow it to cool and place in a air tight container for all to enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea.
