Zweibach
Cut rusks into slices one half inch thick. Dry in oven until a golden brown.
Two lines, and everything hinges on the oven being cool enough to dry rather than toast. This is a finishing step for rusks — the sweet enriched rolls given elsewhere in the bread chapter — not a standalone dough.
- TemperatureLowney's does not give one. A slow oven of roughly 250-300F suits this kind of drying, though the recipe does ask for a golden brown, so some colour is intended. Much hotter and the cut faces colour before the middle dries, and the slices can soften again as they cool.
- TimingNot given. Roughly 20 to 40 minutes depending on thickness and how fresh the rusks are, turning the slices once. They are done when a slice snaps cleanly rather than bends.
- The rusks themselvesDay-old is better than fresh. A fully cooled, slightly stale rusk slices to a clean half inch without tearing or compressing under the knife.
- "Zweibach"The book's spelling of Zwieback, German for "twice-baked." The first baking is the roll; this is the second.
- SubstitutionAny enriched, lightly sweetened bread — brioche, challah, a plain milk bread — behaves the same way. A lean, open-crumbed loaf dries into something closer to melba toast.
- StorageCool completely on a rack before putting them away, or trapped steam will soften them. Airtight, they keep for weeks; re-dry briefly if they lose their snap.
Zwieback belongs to the German and Central European tradition of twice-baking bread to make it keep, the same logic behind ship's biscuit and Italian biscotti — the word in each case means some version of "baked twice." By the time this book was printed, zwieback was widely recommended in American cookery and medical writing as invalid and infant food: hard, bland, low in fat, easy to soak in milk or broth, and safe to hand to a teething child. Drying out rusks was a small act of thrift rather than a recipe in its own right.