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Rusk (Two tea-cups raised dough one)
Two tea-cups raised dough, one tea-cup sugar, half cup butter, two well-beaten eggs, flour enough to make a stiff dough; set to rise, and when light, mold into high biscuit, and let rise again; sift sugar and cinnamon over the top, and place in oven. -Mrs. Mary Lee Gere, Champaign,
This is an enriched sweet roll built on a piece of ordinary bread dough, the standard shortcut in a household that already had bread rising. The whole recipe hinges on that borrowed dough, so the timing depends on your bread schedule rather than a clock.
- Raised dough"Raised dough" means plain yeasted bread dough that has already had its first rise, taken from the day's batch. Two teacups is very roughly 12 to 14 oz of dough, a substantial fraction of a standard loaf's worth. If you are not baking bread, mix a lean dough of flour, water, salt and yeast, let it double, and use that.
- Teacup and cupA teacup in American books of this period is usually reckoned at about 6 fl oz, roughly three-quarters of a modern cup, though usage varied from book to book. The recipe switches to "half cup" for the butter and it is unclear whether the same vessel is meant: half a teacup would be about 3 oz, half a modern cup about 4 oz. Sugar at one teacup to two of dough gives a distinctly sweet roll, comparable to a modern sweet bun.
- Flour enoughAdd flour only until the dough clears the bowl and holds a shape when patted — stiff but still tacky. Sugar, butter and eggs all slacken the dough, and overcorrecting with flour is what turns rusk dry and heavy.
- Enrichment slows the yeastThe sugar and fat will make both rises considerably slower than a plain bread dough. Expect a couple of hours for the first and 45 to 60 minutes for the shaped rolls, and judge by volume rather than time.
- High biscuit"Mold into high biscuit" means tall round rolls rather than flat ones, perhaps 2 in. across and nearly as high. Setting them close together on the pan will encourage them to climb rather than spread, though the recipe gives no direction on size or spacing.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Bake at 375F for 18 to 25 minutes, until deep gold and reading about 190F inside. Sweet dough colors fast, so tent with foil if the tops darken early.
- Sugar and cinnamonBrush the risen tops with a little milk or beaten egg before sifting on the cinnamon sugar, or most of it slides off in the oven.
- YieldAbout a dozen rolls. They are best the day they are made; the older sense of rusk — twice-baked — applies well to the leftovers, split and dried in a 300F oven until crisp.
Rusk in English originally meant bread baked twice until hard and keepable, a ship's-stores and sickroom food, and the word is generally traced to Spanish or Portuguese *rosca*, a twisted or coiled loaf. By the time American community cookbooks were being compiled in the nineteenth century, "rusk" in a chapter of breakfast and tea cakes usually meant something softer: a sweet, egg-and-butter roll of the same family as German *Zwieback* and Dutch *beschuit*, eaten fresh with tea and only dried out if it went stale. The method here — enriching a scoop of the day's bread dough with sugar, butter and eggs — belonged to a kitchen that kept yeast alive continuously. The attribution to Mrs. Mary Lee Gere of Champaign, Illinois is typical of these compilations, which gathered contributions by name from across the country.