Healthy Rusks Recipe – Low sugar & high fiber
Are rusks healthy? I love rusks and the answer is, unfortunately, no, something I realized after making them a few times and learning how much sugar and fat go into them. With that, I started to feel more and more guilty about eating them. I have experimented with many so-called healthy rusks recipes and in my experience, if you drop the fat content too much the rusks end up super hard. Make low sugar rusks and they can taste a little bland.
But I have successfully reduced the sugar in this rusks recipe by 80% and added lots of fiber-rich ingredients making it tummy friendly. Best of all there is no compromise in flavor – the whole family will love this homemade rusks recipe!
Healthy rusks recipe
2 cups cake flour
2 cups nutty wheat or brown flour
2 cups bran flakes
2 cups desiccated coconut
1 cup oats
½ cup of toasted seeds (breakfast mix; omega mix; ultimate mix)
15 ml bicarbonate of soda
15 ml baking powder
15 ml cream of tartar
150g brown sugar
2tsp cinnamon
10ml vanilla essence
100g honey
Nonnutritive sweetener (the equivalent of 20 spoons of sugar)
5ml salt
400g butter, just melted
2 large eggs, beaten
800ml buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 200˚C.
To make this healthy rusks recipe sift together all the flour and add the remaining dry ingredients.
Make a well in the center and pour in the melted butter, honey, buttermilk, and eggs.
Mix to form a thick dough.
Spread into a greased baking tin and bake until risen and golden brown, about 45 mins to an hour. Allow to cool completely before cutting the low sugar rusks into long thin pieces. You can speed up the cooling process by putting the tray in the fridge or freezer.
Arrange the rusks spaced out on a baking tray or wire rack and dry them in the oven at 80˚C for a couple of hours until crisp and dry.
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This one looks good re the sugar content. But the butter content is high again. What can I use to replace the butter with as to cut kiloujules.
As I mentioned in the post, I have tried dropping the fat content and it has always compromised the texture of the rusk, making them really hard and stodgy. My only suggestion would be to substitute butter with coconut oil which is at least a healthy fat. I have had allot of success with coconut oil in baking. But the lovely buttery taste is of course lost. Half and half butter to coconut oil is
The recipe says nonnutritive sweetener but does not state the quantity. Do I use 20 spoons what size spoons? This sounds like an awful lot?
Made this recipe today for the first time and absolutely love the taste. Thanks for this new addition to my baking file
Hi! Pls advise another substitute for buttermilk…Thanks in advance.
Is it possible that you can mail this recipe of rusks to me please. My phone doesn’t want to save. Thanks.
Nonnutritrive sweetner, is this added and if so how much ?
Hi how many rusks does this recipe make?
The recipe says nonnutritive sweetener but does not state the quantity. Do I use 20 spoons what size spoons? This sounds like an awful lot?
To Tilly
The sweetener is the 100g of honey.
Can I replace the cake flour and nutty wheat with gluten free cake flour but keep the same measurements?
I need a wheat-free alternative but this recipe looks sooo yummy!
Don’t have cake flour what other flour could I use
Love these but mine came out quite crumbly after the first bake. Any idea why that is? Only thing I did differently was use wax baking paper on the tray
Hi, love the idea of less sugar. Please explain “ Nonnutritive sweetener (the equivalent of 20 spoons of sugar)” to me? Will it taste like sweeteners people use in coffee? Can you recommend a brand name? Is that 20 table or teaspoons? Thank you!
Looks good..but how much sweetener needs to be added?
Thanks for this recipe
Best rusks ever.
I have made them with double the bran (not breakfast bran flakes, but normal wheat bran) and added a bit of additional brown flour, chopped almonds and dried cranberries… Added some more buttermilk to balance the additional dry ingredients. Cannot remember the measurements as I implemented the changes in a more freehand faschion.
Hi. This Recipe looks like it will be fantastic to make.
I am just making Rusks for 1, so do you think halving the ingredients will work to make a smaller batch?