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).
Sonja
Re. Ingredients missing: oats, cashews, coconut oil? Where are these ingredients and their quantities? Raisings? Or do you mean raisins? 🙂
Real Plant Food
Apologies for the missing ingredients Sonja, it is corrected now. Thanks for letting me know. I think I lost my final edits somewhere during the process.
Sonja
Great, thank you. I will be making these next.
Question
Hello 🙂 how much liquid to soak the cashews & for how long please? Also what sort of oats? Thank you for the recipes
Real Plant Food
Hello! You can soak the cashews for an hour or two, or even overnight if you prefer. Use just enough water to cover, and discard the soaking water. If you want to get going immediately (this is what I usually do) you can boil the cashews for 10 minutes in enough water to cover. Discard the water after soaking. I’ve updated the recipe text for clarity.
For the oats, use rolled oats – not instant or steel cut.
Thanks for the question!
jesse
how long are they in the oven the second time?
Real Plant Food
It takes about 2-3 hours in my oven, but it depends somewhat on humidity and how accurate your oven’s temperature is. I sometimes switch the oven off after about 2 hours and then just leave them overnight
Beverley
Hi,
180° is converted to 350° according to my instructor so, I’m a little concerned about burning the product.
Real Plant Food
Hi Beverly,
I’m trying to keep to round numbers when converting to Fahrenheit, and opted to round up in this case. (The exact conversion is 356F). This dough is not very sugary, so it is not so prone to burning, and a good crust is important for these. However, if your load tins are big, I would go for the lower temperature as it would take longer to cook
Melanie Widan
Hi do you add the rolled oats together with the nutty wheat flour?
Real Plant Food
Yes – Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and oats together.
melanie
Hi how much coconut oil do u use…
melanie
Hi without reading the recipe correctly (typical) I am now ready to mix everything
together and see there is no amount for the coconut oil… please HELP! : (
Real Plant Food
So sorry! I accidentally deleted when I made an earlier edit. 150g melted. My sincere apologies! It is updated in the recipe
Melanie Reiser Widan
thanks so much….. Hope they work out : )
melanie
The rusks were fantastic … thanks so much. Will definitely do again. I used a cup of mixed
raisins, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds and cocoa nibs.
Real Plant Food
Thanks a lot for the feedback. That sounds like a great mix of add ins!
I’m really sorry about the ingredients list issue, but I’m really glad they worked out!
leona kadir
hi, is the baking powder amount correct? it seemed very high so I checked some other recipes and they were all a much lower amount (even using plain rather than self raising flour). I just wanted to check as the recipe is great. I went with 1tsp of each baking powder and baking soda. ive only made non vegan rusks before so wasnt sure how much effect the egg has as a leaven. I also milled fresh flour for these, yum!
Real Plant Food
It is indeed correct. I know it seems like a lot, but since there is no leavening from the eggs the baking powder has to do more heavy lifting.
I prefer using all baking powder, as I feel it is less prone to that soapy taste.
Lenie Kok
Hi there, love the recipe! Quick question though… when do I add the flax meel mix, do I add it to the wet ingredients, “buttermilk”… or? Blessings Lenie
Real Plant Food
Hi Lenie,
I add it to the rest of the wet ingredients.
Natalie
Hi there. Your recipe looks great, I am going to give it a try. Do you think I could substitute the coconut oil with a plant butter? I am sure that would work, just wondered if you have perhaps tried it? Thanks Natalie