°Makes: about 40 to 50 rusks, depending on how you cut them.
Ingredients:
1kg cake flour
30ml (2 tbsp) baking powder
5ml (1 tsp) salt
350g butter, cut into blocks and slightly softened
200g (1 cup) sugar or more to taste
Finely grated rind and juice of 1 large lemon
2 extra-large eggs
500ml (2 cups) buttermilk
150ml water
250ml (1 cup) poppy seeds
250ml (1 cup) desiccated coconut, lightly toasted
Method:
1. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips till the flour looks like breadcrumbs.
2. Stir in the sugar and lemon rind.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the lemon juice, eggs, buttermilk and water.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until well combined.
5. Stir in the poppy seeds and coconut.
6. Press the dough into a 40x30x5cm deep oven pan sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 180°C for 50-60 minutes.
7. Cool and cut into pieces. Return to a baking tray without overlapping and return to the oven at 70ºC to dry out for 4-5 hours or overnight.
8. Cool and store in an airtight container.
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