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Old Fashioned Rusk

A yeast‑leavened biscuit brushed with milk and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By New Orleans Federation of Clubs · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Rusk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve a cake of compressed yeast in a gill of warm water.

  2. Sift a pint of flour into a large bowl.

  3. Add a teaspoon of salt and a pint of warm milk. Stir well and add the melted yeast cake.

  4. Cover and set in a warm place overnight.

Shape the rusks

  1. In the morning beat a half cupful of butter, one cup granulated sugar, and three eggs into a cream. Stir this mixture into the sponge.

  2. Sift in enough flour to make a soft dough.

  3. Put the dough on a floured board and roll it to a thickness of half an inch. Cut out with a small biscuit cutter.

  4. Place the biscuits in a baking pan greased with lard. Cover and let rise until spongy and light.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven for about twenty-five minutes.

  2. When removed from the oven, brush tops with a roll of paper dipped in milk. Sprinkle powdered sugar over them.

  3. Serve hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

960Calories
28 gProtein
39 gFat
124 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Pienot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By New Orleans Federation of Clubs. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Yeast (in the method)
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise and turn light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping the dough set and hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat, giving the dough tenderness and a richer flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps browning on the baked tops.

The step that matters

Let the shaped rusks rise until spongy and light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas; under-proofed rusks stay dense, while the rise sets the light texture before baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, corn, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, corn, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More rusk recipes

Pudding 14Yeast 13Sweet 6Tea 6Potato 4Cookies 4 See all 53 →

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