Skip to main content
Bread

To Make Rusks

Rusks are baked bread pieces made from flour, butter, milk, sugar, eggs, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Make Rusks

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine the milk and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Heat gently until the butter is melted.

  3. Mix the flour and sugar together in a bowl.

  4. Beat the eggs and stir them with the yeast into the milk and butter mixture.

  5. Combine the liquid with the flour to form a smooth dough.

  6. Cover the bowl with a cloth.

  7. Let the dough rise near a warm place.

  8. Knead the dough.

Bake and dry

  1. Divide the dough into twelve pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) and bake for about 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the rusks.

  4. Break them in half.

  5. Return them to the oven to crisp the other side.

  6. Once cooled, store them in tin canisters to keep dry.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the rusks together.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dough and give it a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise before baking.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps feed the yeast while browning the crust.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise near a warm place. Yeast needs warmth to produce gas, and the dough must rise fully before baking so the rusks become light rather than dense. Covering the bowl keeps the surface from drying and forming a crust.

“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 rusks recipes

Sweet 8Cream Cake and Sweet 4French 4Lebanon 4Old Fashioned 3 See all 38 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes