These South African Style Basic Rusks are essentially a buttermilk rusk except I never have buttermilk on hand so these are made with the good old milk and vinegar trick.
South African style buttermilk-less buttermilk rusks
- 2½ cups milk
- ½ cup vinegar
- 8 cups SR Flour
- 125 g butter (melted)
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 egg
Mix together milk and vinegar and let sit while you chuck everything else into a bowl. Once curdled, mix in 'buttermilk' then knead until nicely combined (don't beat the life out of it though, you want it to be nice and rise-y so a good knead but don't over do it). Put roughly rolled, ping pong sized balls into a baking dish. Make sure they are all snuggled in fairly closely, you don't want them to spread at all, make it so their only way is up. Then bake at 160 deg cel until the centre rusks sound hollow when tapped. Break the rusks apart and pop back on oven trays and turn your oven down as low as it goes and let them dry overnight.
So I am not South African so I feel a little odd posting this, however, the man who works with us is and loves a rusk with his morning cuppa so have been perfecting these for a while and he gives them a big tick of approval.
The Ramblings
So a while ago I posted my condensed milk rusks and while I LOVE them, they were far too naughty for how many of them I was eating so I decided to investigate buttermilk rusks that have a bit less sugar. Still a long way from saintly but a bit less devilish.
It’s a bit more of a madshow than normal here at the moment. After a questionable decision to move some goats, I now have 11 kiddies and a lamb living in my tennis court…. 4 of said kiddies are still convinced I’m trying to kill them and play dead, no matter how much I try to tell them otherwise….. Thankfully the other little darling have realised I’m the bringer of their goods and are rather rambunctiously loving.
I’ve long been an avid poddy lover, I remember being in kindy and trying to teach a poddy calf to climb the steps becuase I wanted her to sleep in my room. Turns out that’s a genetic trait… When I was at 10 kiddies I’d told Matt I was at my absolute limit and bringing any more home would not be good for his health or continued ability to walk. So when he found our latest addition ‘Pepper’, he stuck his head through the front door, chucked her in, yelled ‘love you!’ and made a hasty retreat. I was in the middle of the dinner and milk making madness and Hazel was happily patting her so I left them to it for a few minutes… in less than 2 minutes, Hazel had poor little Pepper down in her room up on her bed, under her arm reading her a book! Very cute but Pepper didn’t look so thrilled…. Whoops!