Rainy Day Rusks

When you live in a country and culture different to that in which you grew up, there are many things that are new and exciting, but there are also those things that one never stops missing. When it comes to food, biggies around here are english style marmalade (see previous post!), marmite, rooibos tea (south african style - unembellished and every day) and rusks. We love rusks, our kids love rusks and our friends now love rusks too. Today was a day for rusk making.

A rusk is like a biscotti in that it is a bready-mix that one bakes, cuts up and then dries in the oven. The similarity ends there. A rusk is a un-precious, un-fancy everyday pleasure that is dunked in tea/ coffee/ hot chocolate. Flour, buttermilk, eggs, sugar (not  lot of it) are the basics and then any combination of nuts, bran flakes, granola and dried fruit gets added, according to whim, taste or what is in the cupboard. Rusks stem from the Afrikaans food tradition ("beskuit") and are easy to make but also time consuming since the drying part can take most of a day or more and it involves a few steps. I channel my inner Karoo farmers wife as I mix, bake, cut and dry. The whole house smells of buttermilky, baked goodness as the rusks dry. Quite often one gets snagged and eaten while warm and semi-crisp, since the waiting can be tough!

Rusks are drying in the oven as I type, saturday night beckons (Terrapin Croassroads! http://terrapincrossroads.net/), tomorrow will be a rusks for breakfast day and I will add a recipe.