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Zweibach
Beat six eggs together with three ounces of powdered sugar; mix one-fourth pint of fresh yeast in one-half pint of slightly warmed milk, then add one-fourth pound of warmed butter. Stir in gradually with the above ingredients sufficient flour to form a stiff paste, stirring it continually and mixing it very smoothly. Place a cloth over the pan and place it in a warm temperature until the dough has risen to twice its original height. Sprinkle a little flour over the dough and spread it well with the hands; it should not be too stiff. Divide this into several small portions, and shape them into long and rather narrow cakes about one inch in thickness. Place the Zweibach on a buttered baking-tin, brush them over with a paste-brush dipped in milk, and bake them. When cooked, leave the cakes until the following day, then split them open, lay them out flat, the crust part underneath, and stand them in a moderate oven again until yellow and crisp. These cakes may be eaten with butter while hot, if liked, or left until cold, and eaten as dry as a biscuit.
A straightforward enriched yeast dough, baked once as small loaves and then sliced and dried a second time. Two things in the original need translating before you start: the yeast measurement and the flour, neither of which corresponds to anything on a modern shelf.
- The yeast is the sticking pointA quarter pint of "fresh yeast" means half a cup of liquid barm or brewer's yeast, a wet, weak leaven that is not sold today. A single packet of instant or active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp), or a 0.6 oz cake of fresh yeast, will raise this quantity of dough; make up the missing half cup of liquid with additional warm milk.
- Liquid and fat measuresOne-fourth pint is 1/2 cup, one-half pint is 1 cup, and one-fourth pound of butter is one stick. "Warmed butter" means soft and just melting, not hot, or the eggs will curdle.
- Powdered sugar, 1896In this period powdered sugar generally meant granulated sugar ground fine, rather than the cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar sold now. Three ounces is a scant half cup; superfine or caster sugar is the closest match, and plain granulated dissolves fine in a wet dough.
- Flour is left to your judgement"Sufficient flour to form a stiff paste" with 6 eggs, a cup of milk (plus whatever milk you have added back in place of the barm) and a stick of butter will take a good deal of flour, and the amount is not fixed. Add it in stages; the dough should be stiff enough to shape by hand but still slightly tacky.
- Oven temperaturesThe original gives nothing for the first bake; about 375F suits, but these cakes are only an inch thick, so start checking early and bake only until the tops are set and lightly browned. The second, drying bake should be lower than the "moderate oven" the original names for it: 275 to 300F for 20 to 30 minutes, turning once, so the slices dry through rather than colour on the outside.
- The hinge is the overnight restDo not shortcut the day's wait. Fresh, warm crumb tears and gums up under the knife; a cooled, slightly stale loaf slices clean and gives up its moisture evenly in the second bake. That is what makes a zwieback keep.
- Slicing and arrangement"Split them open" may mean halving the small loaves lengthwise, or cutting them into slices; either way they are laid out flat with the crust part underneath, as the original directs. Crowding the pan traps steam and leaves the centres leathery.
- YieldThe original says only "several small portions", so the count depends on how large you shape them. Stored airtight and fully dry, they keep for weeks; any softness means they went back in too soon.
Zwieback is simply German for "twice-baked," the same idea behind Italian biscotti and the ship's rusk: bread driven dry so it will not spoil. By the end of the nineteenth century it had two lives in American households, one as a coffee bread and one as sickroom and nursery food, recommended for invalids and teething children because it is bland, dry and easy to keep; commercial boxed zwieback was a fixture of American groceries well into the twentieth century. Its appearance in Oscar Tschirky's 1896 collection places it among the hotel's rolls, rusks and coffee breads. The enrichment here is notably heavy for a rusk, six eggs and a stick of butter, which puts it closer to a sliced brioche than to plain dried bread.