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Des Moines Rusk

A rusk made by thickening milk with flour, adding yeast, sugar, shortening, eggs, then baking after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Des Moines Rusk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Thicken the milk with flour as for sponge and mix in the yeast.

  2. Set in a warm place to rise.

Mix and rest the dough

  1. Once light, add sugar, shortening, and beaten eggs.

  2. Stir until very stiff.

  3. Let the mixture stand until very light.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out into cakes using minimal flour.

  2. Let the cakes rise again until very light, then bake.

  3. Rub a mixture of sugar and water over them.

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.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Provides the liquid base that the flour thickens into a sponge.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sponge and gives the dough its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, adds sweetness, and helps the surface brown.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb.
Eggs
Add richness and structure that helps the dough set.

The step that matters

Let the cakes rise again until very light. The yeast's gas must fill the shaped dough before baking. Under-rising leaves the rusks dense, while over-rising lets the gas escape and the structure collapse.

“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.

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