My beautiful dog and baking rusks

In between hospital trips to the city, I decided to try my hand at baking rusks. Although I can bake quite extensively, I never bothered to learn to bake rusks. Why? Because my Mum baked the most delicious rusks and I just enjoyed them.

My SIL, Shelley (my birding mentor) bakes the most divine rusks. She makes buttermilk rusks and also healthy seed rusks. When we visited at the beginning of September, I asked her to bake me a batch of the latter. She said she'd go one better: she'd show me step-by-step how to bake them. And together we baked them.

Grant and I brought 2kg of rusks and about a kilo of crumbs (these are almost as yummy as the rusks themselves) back on the motorbike. But of course, now they're finished. 

Yesterday I gathered up the courage to bake rusks here in my own oven. I was on Whatsapp with Shelley on and off asking her certain steps (although I was following her recipe!) You bake the thick batter in an oven pan. Then you allow it to cool a little before tipping it out onto a cooling rack. There you allow it to cool completely. Then you slide the large rectangular cake onto a board and slice it into fingers. I use an electric carving knife. As I cut the fingers up into 2cm rusks, Rina carefully placed them on the cooling rack which is suspended over the oven pan. They spent overnight drying out at a very low heat. 

  The tray of rusks drying out in the warm oven.

 Underneath is a circular pan of crumbs drying out as well

Sir Galahad guarding Mum's first-ever rusks in the oven! 

 I'm linking my post to Our World Tuesday here