Blogmas Day 9 – Christmas Baking Tutorial: Merry Christmas Rusks

Helloooo everyone! 

If I had to say the one thing that I love about the Christmas season most … I would go absolutely nuts and string myself up with tinsel because it is impossible to choose! But the food is pretty up there. I don’t know if it’s the spices, or the variety, but I could honestly eat my way through the holiday season which is why it could be considered a very bad time for those trying to be healthy (like me – but if you would like some tips on staying healthy over Christmas you can check out the post I wrote about it here). 

There’s glazed gammon (my absolute favourite), all the festive drinks, the variety of Christmas cookies, stuffing, 101 types of potatoes, mince pies, Christmas pudding, and so much more. In fact, writing this is making my stomach grumble. I’m definitely going to go get some mince pies tomorrow. Anywho, I got distracted talking about all the Christmas food, I love sharing recipes with people, even though there are a few I’m particularly protective of and so I thought I would share one again this Blogmas. I was trying to think of something interesting, but also something Christmassy and so I came up with a Christmas Rusk Recipe. For all those who don’t know, rusks are a South African thing and the best way I can describe them is: 

‘All the ingredients you would have in a cereal bar, baked into a cake that’s not particularly sweet. You slice up the cake and then dry out the slices so they have the same texture as biscotti.’

So now that you know what rusks are (sort of), I came up with a Christmas version of them since my friends all loved my original recipe so much. Today I will be sharing with you my Merry Christmas Rusks recipe – I hope you enjoy! 

Ingredients

• 500g self-raising flour 
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 ½ tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp ginger  
• 1 ½ cups of oats 
• 200g sugar 
• ¼ cup of honey 
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• ⅓ cup sunflower seeds
• ½ cup pumpkin seeds
• ¼ flaxseeds
• 250ml buttermilk 
• 125g melted butter
• 2 large eggs
• ⅓ cup of oil 

Making your rusks

• First things first, preheat your oven to 180 degrees C
• Sift the flour and salt together into a big bowl. Add the oats, sugar, honey, raisins, cranberries, all the seeds and spices and mix to combine them. 

• In a separate bowl or jug, measure out your buttermilk. Pour in the melted butter, eggs and oil and stir (or whisk) gently to combine. If it helps you can whisk the eggs first and then whisk all the wet ingredients together. 

• Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry mix and stir gently until it’s all mixed together. You should get a thick, dough-like batter so it won’t be as loose as normal cake batter. If it seems a bit too dry or stiff to mix, add a splash more of buttermilk but remember it should be fairly sticky and thick so don’t make it too runny. 

• Empty the mixture into a rectangular baking tin/cake pan that you’ve lined with baking paper. Gently smooth it over so it is spread into all the corners. 

• Bake your rusks for 45 minutes until the top is a deep golden brown. Loosely cover the top with tin foil after the first 20 minutes to stop the top of your rusks from getting too brown or burning. Take out the oven and allow to cool before proceeding to the next step. 

• Once your rusks are cool, remove them from the tin, take off the paper and place on a large cutting board. Slice into finger-style-slices that you would like. Place your slices onto a flat baking tray with baking paper, allowing a little space for each rusk. 
• Now it’s time to dry out your rusks. Dry them out overnight (8-10 hours) in a 60C oven or for 6 hours in a 100C oven. Try to turn them over halfway through but it doesn’t matter if you don’t. Also if your rusks are thicker they will need a bit longer to dry out. 
• When the rusks feel super dry and crunchy to the touch, they are done!

And voila! I hope you all enjoy these Merry Christmas rusks. They are really great as homemade presents, and perfect to have for breakfast, or just to dunk in your tea and coffee as an afternoon snack. If you make them, I really hope you like them and please let me know how they turn out and what you think. Otherwise, that’s all I have for you guys today so my question for today is – what is your favourite Christmas bake?? Let’s chat in the comments section! 

Lots of love

Blondey on a Mission xxx