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Russian Wine Rusks
This and the next succeeding kind want the same skill in making that sponge cake does. They belong properly to the department of cakes, and may be used as such as well as in the form of dry rusks. 14 ounces of granulated sugar. 12 eggs. 8 ounces of almonds. 8 ounces of unbolted flour. 1 teaspoonful of almond extract.
Crush the almonds with the rolling-pin on the table without removing the skins, and then mix them with the half pound of graham flour-which should have the coarsest bran sifted sway from it before weighing. Beat the sugar and eggs together in a cool place about half an hour. When perfectly light and thick stir in the flavoring and the flour and almonds. Bake in long, narrow moulds. Slice, and brown the slices in the oven.
A whole-egg sponge, baked in logs and then sliced and dried — the same operation that produces biscotti or zwieback. The batter has no chemical leavening, so everything depends on the egg foam.
- The hinge: beat to the ribbonWhole eggs and sugar are the only leavening here. Beat until the mass is pale, thick, and falls from the whisk in a wide ribbon that holds its shape for a second or two on the surface — about 8 to 10 minutes in a stand mixer, where the original allows half an hour by hand. Then fold in flour and nuts by hand; a mixer at this stage knocks the air out.
- "In a cool place"Bakeshop kitchens were often hot, and the direction probably has less to do with comfort than with keeping the egg foam workable while it is beaten for half an hour; room-temperature eggs in a cool kitchen are a reasonable reading.
- Weights, not cupsUse a scale: 14 oz sugar (about 2 cups granulated), 8 oz graham flour (roughly 1¾ cups, but it varies with the grind), 8 oz almonds. Twelve eggs is about 600 g of shelled egg with large eggs.
- Unbolted flour and grahamUnbolted flour is flour with the bran left in — what the recipe then calls graham flour. Modern whole-wheat flour is the equivalent. Sifting out the coarsest bran, as directed, is still worth doing if your flour is stone-ground and gritty.
- Almonds with skins onCrushing unblanched almonds with a rolling pin gives uneven pieces, from coarse meal to halves, and the skins add color and slight bitterness. A food processor will do it, but pulse briefly — run it too long and you get almond butter.
- "Long, narrow moulds"Two standard loaf pans, lined, or narrow pullman-style tins; the point is a log that slices into neat bars. Bake at 350F until a skewer comes out clean, roughly 30 to 40 minutes depending on the pan.
- The second bakeCool the loaves completely — ideally overnight — before slicing, or they crumble. Cut about ½ inch thick, lay the slices flat, and dry them at 300F, turning once, until crisp and lightly colored, 20 to 30 minutes. They should snap when cold, not bend.
- Yield and keepingTwo loaves give several dozen rusks. Fully dried and kept airtight they hold for weeks; the recipe itself notes that the mixture belongs "properly to the department of cakes" and may be used that way as well as in the form of dry rusks.
A rusk is bread or cake baked twice, once as a loaf and again in slices, so that it keeps "the same principle behind Dutch and German zwieback, Italian biscotti, and ship's biscuit. Names like "Russian" and "Vienna" attached to such things loosely in nineteenth-century American trade cookery and generally signalled a fashionable Continental style rather than a documented origin. The American Pastry Cook was written for hotel and restaurant bakers rather than home cooks, which shows in the way this entry is framed: ingredients by weight, no pan sizes, and a note that the batter belongs "properly to the department of cakes" and can be sold either way. Whole-wheat flour in a fine cake was itself a period signal, part of the late-century enthusiasm for graham flour following the dietary reform preaching of Sylvester Graham a few decades earlier.