Afternoon tea
50 minutes, plus 5-7 hours’ drying time in the oven
Marmalade rusks
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Marmalade rusks
Medium
30 minutes
50 minutes, plus 5-7 hours’ drying time in the oven
Ingredients
- 1 kg stoneground white cake flour
- 2 T baking powder
- 4 t salt
- 500 g butter, cubed and at room temperature
- 165 g toasted muesli
- 130 g sultanas or raisins
- 175 g sunflower seeds
- 35 g linseeds
- 30 g sesame seeds
- 30 g pumpkin seeds
- 40 g desiccated coconut
- 300 g brown sugar
- 2 oranges, finely zested
- 2 cups buttermilk
- 2 cups marmalade
- 3 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 170°C and grease a 32 x 42 cm baking tray.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until it feels like coarse breadcrumbs.
3. Mix in the muesli, sultanas or raisins, seeds and coconut.
4. Place the sugar in a separate bowl and rub in the orange zest. Stir in the buttermilk, marmalade and eggs.
5. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the centre of the flour mixture, and stir well using a wooden spoon.
6. Spoon the mixture into the greased baking tray.
7. Bake for 45–50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean and the sides of the rusks pull slightly away from the tray. They should be golden brown.
8. Leave to cool slightly, turn out onto a wire rack, then allow to cool completely.
9. Cut into rusks 1–2 cm wide and 6–8 cm long, and spread across two baking trays, with space in between for air to move.
10. Dry in a 100–120 °C oven for 5–7 hours until the rusks are hard. Near the end, watch out that they don’t overbake and get too dark.
11. Once they have cooled completely, store the rusks in airtight containers lined with paper towel.
Cook's note
- You can also add dried cranberries or your favourite nuts, seeds or dried fruit, as long as the overall amount of dry ingredients stays about the same.
- Because the marmalade can make the inside of the rusks a bit sticky, it is important to check that the rusk mixture ins well baked. You may need to bake it a bit longer and at a lower temperature than usual. For the same reason, slice your rusks thinner than usual. It might take a little longer for them to dry completely. The traditional rusk-making way of in the butter (instead of using melted butter) helps remove the stickiness problem.
- If the orange zest is too tangy for you, you could replace it with candied orange peel.
Extracted with permission from Recipes to Die Live For: A Tannie Maria Cookbook by Sally Andrew. The book is published by Penguin Random House South Africa
Photographer: Ed O'Riley