The great South African buttermilk rusk

This traditional yeast-baked rusk just has to be dunked in your tea or coffee early in the morning. It’s a firm favourite in South Africa, and many a baby has cut his teeth on an un-dunked rusk, chewed on for hours!

Ingredients

375g butter
500g sugar
2 extra large eggs
30ml (2 tablespoons) baking powder
1,5kg self-raising flour
500ml (2 cups) buttermilk or plain drinking yogurt
Instructions on how to make it
Preheat oven to 180°C.

Method

Cream butter and sugar together well. Add eggs, one at a time. Sift the flour and baking powder together, and add to the creamed mixture, using a fork to mix. Then add buttermilk or yogurt. Mix well with a fork and then knead lightly. Pack lightly rolled, golf ball sized portions of dough into the greased bread pans close together, and bake for 45-55 minutes. Rusks should be squarish-obling, rather than round. Place the pans in the middle of the oven, with a sheet of brown paper on the top shelf to protect the rusks from becoming browned too quickly. (Do not let the paper touch the oven elements.)

Remove the paper after the rusks are well risen and cooked through, to brown the tops. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting. Turn out on to cake racks, cool and separate them. Pack the rusks on wire racks or on cooled oven racks – air must circulate. Place in cool oven, leaving the door ajar, for 4-5 hours, or overnight, to dry out.

TIPS: If the rusks are to be kept for a long time, do not substitute margarine for the butter. If no buttermilk or yogurt is available, use fresh milk curdled with lemon juice or white vinegar.

Delicate lavender biscuits

Ingredients & method

Cream 120g butter and 60g sugar.
Stir in 180g flour and 20ml lavender flowers.
Knead roll into a 4cm diameter tube cover with cling wrap and put in fridge until firm enough to slice. Cut into 3-5 mm circles and bake for about 15 min or until light brown.

Nothing like your first cup of coffee in the morning with a delicious lavender biscuit!