Mosbolletjie rusks

This is the champion recipe for mosbolletjies! The ultimate treat is to eat them fresh from the oven, with lots of butter. You can decide to use this recipe to bake and eat them fresh, or dry them out and sell as rusks.The recipe produces a huge batch of rusks, which will be very profitable for selling. You can use bread flour instead of cake flour; just adjust the amount of liquid.

To make the Mosbolletjie rusks

1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the condensed milk and mix.

2. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. In a separate very large bowl, sift the cake flour and salt together. Mix in the yeast and aniseeds.

4. Add the lukewarm water to the egg and butter mixture and stir gently.

5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and knead the dough well for about 5 minutes.

6. Place the dough in a very large, oiled bowl. Cover well with clingfilm and leave in a warm place (not too warm as it will kill the yeast) to prove until doubled in volume.

7. Knock down the dough and shape it into balls (golf ball size, about 80 g each).

8. Place the balls in three large, well-greased loaf tins, packed tightly.

9. Leave to rise once again – it must at least double in volume.

10. Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

11. Place the tins in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 160 °C and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown and cooked.

To the sugar syrup: 

1. Dissolve the sugar in the water in a saucepan on medium heat and boil for 3 minutes. Cool.

2. Brush the loaves with the sugar syrup as soon as you remove them from the oven. Cool for a few minutes and remove from the bread tins. You can serve the mosbolletjies like this, spread generously with butter, or continue with the recipe if you want to make rusks instead.

This is an extract from Baking by Christine Capendale, published by Human & Rousseau, retailing for R420.

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