I am unearthing piles of pictures of food from days past ,it confirms my hazy memory of running for my camera soon as I finish cooking anything reasonably accountable. These rusks in the pictures here for example were made for my daughter when she was teething, and that was about six years ago. Now we are more excited when one of those precious milk teeth wiggles. The rusk did not help much with the process back then though, the child managed to teeth by biting on the headboard of our then brand new bed ! Now when I see those marks I can only smile, it takes a couple of years to attain that level of composure sweet people :)
This rusk recipe is adapted from a Zwieback recipe from King Arthur flour’s website, tweaked to get the Indian style rusk, tea’s best friend. My childhood breakfast, lunch and dinner whenever I spiked a fever, like it was for many other kids of that time. Indian style rusk is usually spiced with Caraway seeds or Ajwain seeds or a combination of both.
Indian Tea Rusk
Recipe
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Sugar- 4 tbsp.
Yeast - 1 ½ tsp.
Salt -½ tsp.
Shajeera ( Caraway seeds) ground - ¼ tsp.
Ajwain seeds ground- ¼ tsp.
Butter softened - 3 tbsp.
Egg - 1
Milk - ½ cup
Raisins ( optional) - ¼ cup
Mix all ingredients and make a soft and sticky dough, adding enough water if needed. Keep in a warm place for 1½ - 2 hours or till the dough doubles in size. Shape the dough into a 12 inch log, longer if you would like smaller rusks. Cover the dough and allow it to rise for another one and half hour. Towards the end of this rising time, preheat the oven to 350 C. Bake for 20 minutes , take the loaf out of the oven and leave it on the kitchen countertop loosely covered with an Aluminum foil till the next day. Heat the oven to 200 C. Slice the bread into half an inch thick pieces and arrange the cut slices on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Turn the rusk pieces over and bake for 10 more minutes. Turn the oven off. Leave the rusks inside the oven for 20 more minutes. Take it out and cool in the countertop for at least three hours. The recipe yields about two dozen rusks. Serve with black tea
Shajeera ( Caraway seeds) ground - ¼ tsp.
Ajwain seeds ground- ¼ tsp.
Butter softened - 3 tbsp.
Egg - 1
Milk - ½ cup
Raisins ( optional) - ¼ cup
Mix all ingredients and make a soft and sticky dough, adding enough water if needed. Keep in a warm place for 1½ - 2 hours or till the dough doubles in size. Shape the dough into a 12 inch log, longer if you would like smaller rusks. Cover the dough and allow it to rise for another one and half hour. Towards the end of this rising time, preheat the oven to 350 C. Bake for 20 minutes , take the loaf out of the oven and leave it on the kitchen countertop loosely covered with an Aluminum foil till the next day. Heat the oven to 200 C. Slice the bread into half an inch thick pieces and arrange the cut slices on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Turn the rusk pieces over and bake for 10 more minutes. Turn the oven off. Leave the rusks inside the oven for 20 more minutes. Take it out and cool in the countertop for at least three hours. The recipe yields about two dozen rusks. Serve with black tea
