SA Promo Post: Hardloop Beskuit – A Sure Thing

SA Promo Post: Hardloop Beskuit – A Sure Thing

Published on SA Promo:

Growing up, there were several key lessons that my mom passed down to us as kids. Many we still practice to this day, and some may have slightly fallen by the wayside (like the importance of eating apples). Most of these lessons and memories invariably stem from the kitchen, where many an afternoon, my mom would be cooking or baking up a new concoction that was to serve as our feast that evening.  But one lesson that that my mom taught the 3 of us, that still sticks with us to this day, was to make sure we ate enough fibre.

(Because Moms care that way).

And a key tool in the battle of the High Fibre war, was this wonderful rusk recipe amicably nicknamed, “Hardloop Beskuit”.

Hardloop because they’re so easy to make – and hardloop because, well… you know.

So – after adapting the recipe to suit UK ovens and ingredients lists, we thought we’d share this winner with you as a perfect rainy-day dunking spectacular.

Ingredients:

• 7 cups of whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup of oats
• 1 cup of wheat bran
• 1 cup of sesame seed
• 1 cup of sunflower seed
• 2 cups of brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda (dissolved in a couple of tsps of milk, and added to the yogurt)
• 500ml thin plain yogurt (or buttermilk if you’re in SA)
• ½ cup of milk
• 3 eggs
• 400g butter (softened)

Method

1. In a large mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together
2. In a separate mixing bowl, mix the milk, yogurt, eggs, bicarbonate of soda mixture together.
3. Rub the softened butter into the dry ingredient mixture with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs
4. Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients
5. Stir together well (I find that using a blunt knife or spatula provides the least messy result). Be careful not to overmix the mixture.
6. Butter a large oven pan (approx. 40cm x 30cm and pour in the rusk mixture.  Bake in oven at 180 degrees / Gas Mark 4 for 1 hour.
7. When done, remove from oven, and set aside to cool slightly in the pan.
8. Tip the rusks onto a cooling rack – The rusks will be brittle and will look like 1 solid bread – be careful not to break the rusk mixture up yet.
9. Allow to cool completely.
10. Once cooled, place rusks on a flat surface and cut into bite-size squares (approx. 4cm x 4cm). (It’s at this point that you may want to pour yourself a glass of milk, steal a couple of warm soft rusk squares).
11. Place the squares onto a flat oven sheet and return to a cool oven at approx. 130 degrees / Gas Mark 1 to dry out for a couple of hours.