Crunchy golden brown twice baked bread enriched with the flavour of cardamom & fennel seeds. I have given a healthy twist by using oats & wholewheat flour instead of plain flour. Oats are a great source of important vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants .
Preparing rusks at home might look like a time-consuming process but you don’t have to spend more than 15 minutes of your time in preparation, rest of the job is done by your oven! Once you try them, you will definitely repent why you didn’t prepare them at home till today.
Time: 10 minutes + 2 hours for baking & dryingServes: Makes 12-15 rusks
Ingredients
1/2 cup wholewheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 tablespoon semolina (suji)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fennel powder
1/4 teaspoon cardamom powder
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup olive oil or ghee
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/4 cup sugar or to taste
Method
Grease a loaf pan and keep it aside.
Grind the rolled oats in a coffee grinder and keep them aside.
Sieve together the wholewheat flour, ground oats, semolina, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Sieve it 2-3 times (it allows aeration). Add the fennel powder and cardamom powder to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Combine milk, oil and vanilla essence in a bowl. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix together until combined. Do not over mix.
Add this mixture to the greased loaf pan.
Bake in the preheated oven at 180°C (160°C for fan ovens) for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean without any batter on it.
Let the cake cool down completely and cut it into slices.
Line a baking tray with aluminium foil and lay these cake slices in a single layer. Bake these slices again at 150 C (130 C for fan-assisted oven) for 20-30 minutes turning sides in between so that they are crisp and golden brown from both sides. Keep an eye on them to prevent them from burning as baking time will depend on the thickness of slices and on the oven.
Once they turn golden brown, switch off the oven and leave the rusks in the oven for about an hour to let them dry and become crispy. It seems like a time-taking process but most of the job is done by the oven except the time taken to combine the ingredients.
Let them cool down completely before storing them in an air-tight container.
Recipe Tips:
You can keep the thickness of your rusk according to your choice while cutting the cake slices. I kept it slightly thicker so that it doesn’t fall apart when dipped in tea.
You can adjust the amount of sugar according to your taste. These rusks are mildly sweet but you can add more sugar if you like.
You can replace the sugar with maple syrup.
