Chocolate Chip Mosbolletjie Rusks

While living in South Africa during lockdown, I got quite accustomed to my morning “koffie en beskuit”. Since returning to Nice to reopen JAN, I found myself missing my morning ritual, but had to get inventive about how I got my fix. Enter the mosbolletjie rusk, which can always be relied upon to give me that instant taste of home. The difference with these rusks is that you get your koffie-en-beskuit fix even before you’ve brewed your morning cuppa, and the chocolate chips? Well, they’re nothing short of a revelation! Why didn’t I think of it before?

500 g (890 ml) cake flour

1 x 10 g packet instant dry yeast

5 ml salt

5 ml aniseed

60 g (75 ml) sugar

125 g (125 ml) chocolate chips

50 g (55 ml) butter

100 ml water

100 ml Nespresso coffee (Fortissio Lungo capsule) cool to room temperature

100 ml milk

Mix the flour, yeast, salt, aniseed, sugar and chocolate chips together.

Place the butter and water in a saucepan and heat until the butter melts.

Take off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Add the melted butter, water and coffee to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Add the milk and knead thoroughly until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Let the dough rise to double its size. Knock down the dough and shape it into a long sausage. Cut into 18 equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a ball and place against one another in a greased loaf pan. Cover and leave to double in size.

Heat the oven to 180 °C and place in the oven. Bake for 50 – 55 minutes.

Turn out of the pan and allow to cool.

Break into pieces and place on a baking tray. Heat the oven to 50 °C. Let the mosbolletjies dry out in the oven until dry.