These vegan buttermilk rusks are packed with oats, currants and raisins. This rusk recipe uses high bran flour to give them lots of fibre. They are the perfect breakfast or anytime snack.
Wait, what are rusks?
Today I learned that Wikipedia lists twenty-three regional variations of rusks. I think the South African rusk has evolved into something special. Wikipedia describes rusks as twice-baked bread dough. This sounds thoroughly unappetizing and isn’t remotely accurate. Rusk dough is a thing unto itself. It is somewhere between bread and cookie dough. A rusk should not be too sweet or rich, though, because you should still be able to convince yourself that you are not eating cookies for breakfast.
In South Africa, rusks (also known as beskuit in Afrikaans) are deeply embedded in our daily lives. If you check into a hotel or guesthouse, there will probably be some rusks at the coffee station. If you walk into an office in the morning, someone will be having a rusk with their morning coffee. On those days that I have to head out at dawn to some remote corner of the country for work, I throw a few rusks into my laptop bag.
How to make vegan rusks
When I started eliminating animal products from my diet, not having rusks was an immediate crisis, and I started experimenting with a rusk recipe. Vegan butter is not commonly available in South Africa, and I despise margarine, so I used coconut oil for some of the fat content in the rusks. I wanted to reduce the coconut oil as much as possible, so I incorporated blended cashew nuts to the recipe that adds lots of buttery flavour and healthier fats.
A combination of soy milk and apple cider vinegar works well for substituting for the buttermilk, but you can use any plant milk you prefer.
The first step is to bake your rusk loaves. At this stage it will look like a tea bread. You will then slice these into rusks. Treat yourself to a wet rusk or two. They are delicious. The cut rusks are dried for several hours in a very low oven.
Vegan buttermilk and oat rusks
Equipment
- Loaf tins
- cookie sheets or racks for drying
- Blender to blend cashews
Ingredients
- 500 g high bran wholewheat flour (Nutty wheat) About 4¼ cups
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp baking powder
- 2 cups rolled oats prefer regular, quick cooking will also work
- 1 cup currants raisins or a combination of the two
- 3 tbs flaxmeal
- 1/2 cup soy milk to mix with flax
- 1 3/4 cup soy milk
- 3 tbsp cider vinegar
- 100 g cashews
- 150 g coconut oil
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/360°F
- Combine the flour, salt, baking powder and oats and currants or raisins in a bowl.
- In a small bowl, combine the flax meal with the warm soy milk and let stand for a few minutes.
- Add the cashews to about two cups water and microwave for a three minutes, and let stand for about five minutes.
- Blend the cashews with the soy milk. I do this in my Nutribullet, but any blender will work. A smooth texture is not that important in this recipe. Add the apple cider vinegar to the milk mixture. You can let this stand for a bit to curdle like buttermilk, but I don’t feel this is necessary.
- Add the sugar and vanilla to the milk mixture. Melt the coconut oil and add this to the same bowl. Also add the flax and soymilk mix.
- Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and oats together. This is the dry mix
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture and stir to combine. Don’t overmix. It will form a dough with a muffin-like consistency.
- Divide the dough between two loaf tins. Mine are 10cmm x 23cm (4'' x 10''). Bake at 180°C (360°F) for about 35-40 minutes.
- Let the loaves cool. Slice each loaf into seven slices, and divide each slice vertically into three fingers
- Lay these out on a sheet pan and put into an oven set to 100°C (210 °F). Allow the rusks to dry for several hours (usually 3- 4 in my oven).