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Rusks, Plain
Cut loaves of bread into slices, and bake them in a slow oven to the proper colour. Or, take hot rolls, divide them, and treat them in the same manner.
A two-line method with almost nothing fixed: the useful detail is in the oven temperature and the degree of drying.
- "Slow oven"Read this as 275-300F. The aim is to drive out moisture without browning quickly; anything hotter colours the outside before the centre dries and the rusk will soften again as it cools.
- Cut thicknessAbout 1/2 inch is right for a loaf. Much thinner and you have melba toast; much thicker and the middle stays leathery.
- The hinge: dry through, not just brown"To the proper colour" is a pale biscuit gold, but colour is not the test. A rusk that snaps cleanly when cool is done; one that bends still has moisture in it. Allow 30-45 minutes, turning the slices once.
- RollsSplitting hot rolls exposes the crumb, which dries readily. The recipe treats the two methods as equivalent.
- Bread to useA plain, firm-crumbed loaf suits the method; the recipe does not specify a type, and it allows fresh hot rolls as well as loaf bread. Modern sandwich bread with added fat and sugar browns faster.
- Cooling and storageCool on a rack in a single layer so steam escapes. Stored airtight once completely cold they keep for weeks; any residual warmth will make the whole tin go soft.
- YieldA standard loaf gives roughly 20-24 rusks, enough to fill a large biscuit tin.
Rusk is bread twice-baked, the same idea that gives us biscotti, zwieback and ship's biscuit: driving the water out of a baked loaf makes it keep, which mattered in a household without refrigeration and in a navy provisioning long voyages. The word appears in English in the late sixteenth century and is generally traced to the Spanish or Portuguese rosca, a twisted or coiled roll. Rusks were nursery and invalid food as much as teatime fare, given to teething children and to the sick as something bland, dry and easily digested. Richer versions enriched with butter, eggs and sugar are also found in Victorian cookery books, which is what the "plain" of the title distinguishes this from.