Dorset cook wins gold starts at the Great Taste Awards with her South African biscuits (From Dorset Echo)

Dorset cook wins gold starts at the Great Taste Awards with her South African biscuits

10:00am Monday 15th August 2011 in Features

A TRADITIONAL South African biscuit has won a Dorset cook a clutch of gold stars at this year’s Great Taste Awards, weeks before they are launched on the open market.

Sue Price, a South African living in Dorset, has made traditional beskuits for her family for many years using simple family recipes.

She has now turned her former hobby into the African Biscuit Company and is about to launch six different beskuits onto the market.

Five have already been awarded gold in the Great Taste Awards 2011 on their first occasion in front of the judges.

The winning flavours are Posh Poppy and Lemon, Sunny Seeds and Raisin, Delightful Date and Walnut, Plush Pecan, White Choc and Cranberry and finally Fruity Fruit and Spice. Sue also makes a Big Breakfast Beskuit and all are wonderful to nibble and perfect to dunk.

Sue’s favourite is the Fruity Fruit and Spice, while her family opts for the Big Breakfast beskuit.

Beskuits – pronounced ‘biskates’ are hard, twice-baked rusk-like chunks that originated back in the 1600s when the Dutch settlers went to the Cape and undertook the Big Trek to the Transvaal. The trekkers baked their bread twice to preserve it and beskuits evolved from this.

Since then, many South African families have developed their own beskuit recipes, which are jealously guarded and handed down from mother to daughter. All are different and are made using whatever suitable ingredients can be found in the store cupboard, from dried fruit and seeds to cereals and flavourings.

Sue, who used to work in retail, moved to the Dorchester area four years ago with her ENT surgeon husband Tim and three young daughters.

She has always cooked beskuits for her family and taken them as gifts when visiting friends. But when one discerning friend suggested she should make them to sell, Sue decided to take the bull by the horns.

She said: “Although I had a career in retail I always wanted to be a chef. Making the beskuits to sell sort of crept up on me to the point where my husband pointed out that I’d become what I originally wanted to be.

“The beskuits are cooked with buttermilk, butter, flour and sugar and I use local suppliers because that’s important to me. I start off by cooking them in a big batch, a bit like a tray bake, and then cut them up and slow-bake them in the oven on a low heat for 10 to 12 hours.”

New recipes are thought up in the specially built kitchen lodged in a converted outhouse and the first challenge for any new combination is to pass the family’s taste test.

Because Sue is now working flat-out on the promotional side of the business, her beskuits are now created and baked by a well-known Dorset bakery.

And fingers are firmly crossed that the beskuits will win the Best New product award at this year’s Speciality and Fine Food fair, which takes place at London’s Olympia next month.

As well as bringing a new taste to Dorset and the UK, the African Biscuit Company is also ploughing a percentage of its profits into a children’s charity back home in St Francis Bay, South Africa.

The Talhado Children’s Haven is a centre offering a secure environment for up to 300 vulnerable youngsters from deprived and sometimes abusive homes.

Sue said: “I felt it was important to do something for a charity back home and this centre provides a safe pre-school facility for vulnerable children as well as a clinic and after-school club.

“As the business grows, so will the money we send to the charity and I do feel it is critical to do all I can to help.”

At present, Sue’s beskuits can be bought from the Brace of Pheasants pub in Plush and online at theafricanbiscuitcompany.co.uk Once the beskuits are formally launched at the start of next month, they will be more widely available.

See theafricanbiscuitcompany.co.uk for full details.