South African Rusks

When I was a child dunking biscuits into drinks was frowned upon in my family; that priviledge, acording to my mother, was reserved for old people who no longer had teeth! I wonder if it had more to do with being a messy activity with bits of biscuit dropping off, splashing into the drink, and forming a residue at the bottom of the cup.

This prohibition lead to an aversion to dunking in my adult life.  Whenever Andy would dunk a Rich Tea biscuit, especially when a piece fell off, or I was washing up the cup afterwards, a mild annoyance would rise up and my mother's words would come back to me.

Now, my only experience with 'rusks' was when my children were being weaned onto solid food, and I would sometimes give them a rusk to suck or chew on.  At the time (1980's) there was only one brand on the market, Farley's Rusks, thick, round, the size of a can top and baked hard.  I must admit, I wasn't keen on them, as I thought them too sweet and containing a lot of sugar for infant gums, but nevertheless, as a young mum, I did have a packet in my store cupboard and my children did munch on one occasionally.

So when we came to South Africa in 2007, we would often be presented with rusks as an accompanyment to a drink: coffee & rusks, instead of tea & biscuits.  These are chunky blocks of biscuit/cake which are baked hard in the oven. Although it is possible to eat them without dunking, espeically if they have a more crumbly texture, so that chunks break off when you bite into them, the SA way is to dip into hot liquid, preferably coffee or Rooibos tea, so that the rusk 'sucks up' the liquid and makes it soft enough to chew easily.

Although curious to try, I had several hangups to overcome, but our friends were so enthusiastic about them, that it wasn't long before I joined the ranks of 'dunkers'.

In the SA supermarkets large sections of shelving are devoted to rusks: plain or healthy, with seeds and nuts, with raisins or cherries and so on. There are even speciality shops for rusks, with special recipes and unusual added ingredients.  It seems that everyone has a favourite recipe, often their grandmother's (or 'ouma', in Afrikaans): in fact Ouma Rusks is one of the brands sold here. 

Curiously, I like rusks more than Andy, who still prefers a thin Rich Tea, or Marie biscuit, which I can buy here.  I've bought gift packs of special rusks to take as presents both to England and Ukraine, thereby introducing people from other cultures to this most South African snack food. I particularly like the ones with cherries added.

Recently, some SA friends and I spent an afternoon making and baking rusks, as they shared their experience with me to demonstrate how easy they are to make. As you can imagine there are hundreds of recipes out there, but I chose one from this interesting blog,  
http://food-and-family.blogspot.com/2006/09/south-african-rusks-recipe.html.
I was looking for a simple recipe with ingredients I already had in my store cupboard, so this one seems to fit the plan, and I only had to buy buttermilk, the key ingredient in most recipes, which gives a creamy, slightly acidic taste, which cuts through the sweetness, much like when you add natural yoghurt to a dish.

I replaced the raisins with a mixture of sunflower, pumkin and sesame seeds and used self raising flour instead of plain, with some wheat bran added to the flour, as I didn't have any wholemeal flour. Andy is not keen on raisins in biscuits and I wanted him to try them.

The process was very straightforward, but my dough was too sticky to roll into balls, and I knew that many recipes don't bother with that part.

When it has shrunk away from the edges and is firm in the centre, when inserting a knife, you take the tray out of the oven to allow to cool slightly to be able to cut into chunky fingers. The oven is then turned right down ready for the drying out process.

After cutting, the pieces go back into the oven for several hours, with the cut sides exposed top and bottom, so that they thoroughly dry out. (A tip is to keep the door ajar with a wooden spoon, allowing the moisture to escape). There are no exact timings for this part, it really depends on how long it takes - some recipes recommend overnight, especially if you bulk bake and fill the oven. This long slow drying out allows them to be kept for a long time, just like ordinary biscuits keep for a long time in an airtight container.

However, you should always keep back a few to enjoy warm and crumbly and be able to compare the texture with the finished rusks.

My friends say you can tell a good rusk by the amount of liquid it sucks up. And there have been competitions to see how few rusks it takes to draw up all the liquid in a small coffee cup. May be that connects to the notion of bedridden toothless grannies who can no longer drink from a cup!