sister herb
Official TTI Chef
150 ml milk
15 g fresh yeast
50 g butter
25 g honey
1 egg yolk
¼ tsp coarsely crushed cardamom seeds
500 ml (about 275 g) flour
1 egg for glazing
Dissolve the yeast in a small amount of cold milk. Warm up the rest of the milk and add to the yeast mixture along with the egg yolk. Add flour enough to get a soft and kneadable dough and continue kneading until the dough is shiny and elastic. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.
Mix together the soft butter, honey and cardamom and add the mixture to the dough. Add more flour, knead and shape the dough into small batons, about 10 cm long and 3 cm wide. Place the batons on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, cover with towel and let rise.
Brush the batons with egg and bake at 225 °C for 8 - 9 minutes, or until slightly browned on surface. Let the batons cool down a bit, then cut them in half lengthwise with a serrated knife. Place the baton halves back on the baking sheet, cut side up, and brown at 200 °C for 5 - 10 minutes.
Remove the rusks from the oven and lower the heat to 50 °C . Return the rusks to the oven, leave the oven door ajar and let the rusks dry until very crisp, for about 1 - 2 hours. You can dry two baking sheets of rusks simultaneously — one on top of another — only switch their places halfway through baking.
Serve the rusks warm or cold at breakfast, lunch or as a snack with tea, coffee, hot chocolate etc, spread with butter, jam, honey, cream cheese or whatever you like. Store in an airtight container.
