A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread.
International variations
Argentina
In Argentina, rusk is called tostadas de mesa (literally 'table toasts'), slices of twice-baked bread generally available in supermarkets in plain and sweetened variants. Cake rusk is called
bay biscuit; its ingredients are egg, sugar, oil, self-rising flour, and vanilla.
File:AR-Tostadas-de-Mesa.jpg|alt=Tostadas de Mesa|Tostadas de Mesa
File:AR-Bay-Biscuit.jpg|alt=Bay Biscuit|Bay Biscuit
Azerbaijan
Rusk is called sukhary ( – a loanword from Russian via
Persian language) in Azerbaijani. It is usually made from stale bread and buns. In
Baku, some bakeries use their stale buns and bread for making rusks. The price of rusk in those bakeries is usually low, as the bakeries do this to avoid wasting the leftover bread and buns.
Bangladesh
Rusk is commonly called toast biscuit. Toast biscuits come in a variety of flavours, such as
ghee toast, garlic toast, and sugar toast, and are usually served with tea. Cake rusk is commonly known as dry cake.
Britain
Butcher rusk is a dry biscuit broken into particles, sorted by particle size and sold to butchers and others for use as a
food additive in
sausage manufacture.
Though originally made from
staling bread, now called bread-rusk, a
yeast-free variety called simply rusk is now more commonly used.
Various rusk particle sizes are used in the food industry, where uses include:
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A carrier for flavours, colours and seasonings
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A binding agent in patty, sausages, stuffings, pies, and other compound meat products
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As an ingredient for dried stuffing mixes
Farley's Rusks
In the UK, Farley's Rusks are a dry
teething biscuit dating from the 1880s, but manufactured by Heinz since 1994. They are usually given to infants, either soaked in milk and mashed up or in their original hard form as a teething aid.
Cuba
Sponge rusk (Cuban Spanish: esponru) is similar to
biscotti but it is made out of twice-baked yellow cake batter. The yellow cake batter is baked into a flat, rectangular cake pan. After it is baked and cooled, it is sliced into strips and baked again or toasted to make cake toast. It is usually eaten with
Cuban espresso or as an accompaniment to
ice cream,
custard, or other dessert dishes.
Denmark
Tvebak is derived from Dutch tweebak (literally 'two bake'), an archaic synonym of
beschuit.
France
A biscotte is a French type of rusk. They are sold packaged in supermarkets.
Finland
A Finnish type of rusk is called
korppu, usually a dried piece of bun, flavoured with
cinnamon or
sugar. Korppu is a common coffee bread, normally eaten after having been dipped in
coffee. A sour version, called hapankorppu, is a flat rusk made from
rye flour and salt, and can be eaten like
crispbread.
Germany
Zwieback (literally 'twice baked') is a form of rusk in Germany. Like the Danish and French words, the name refers to being baked or cooked twice.
Greece
The term
Paximathia () covers various forms of Greek rusk, commonly made from
barley or
chickpea flour, and softened with wine, water, or oil before eating. Paximadi form the basis of the Cretan snack
dakos ().
India
In
India rusk (sometimes also called toast biscuit) is a traditional dried bread or cake. It is also known as papay, rattan, khasta (), russ or cake rusk in
Hindi-Urdu, and
Punjabi language or porai பொறை in Tamil or kathi biskut in
Bengali language. It is usually eaten dipped in milk tea which softens the rusk. The sweet "cake rusk" version
is made of cake whose ingredients include wheat flour, sugar, fat,
leavening agent, and, optionally, eggs.
A popular variant is flavoured with
cardamom.
Indonesia
Double baked bread in Indonesia is called bagelen, believed to originate from Bagelen, a village in
Central Java. Before the second bake, the bread is smeared with sugar and buttercream. It is usually eaten as a snack.
Iran
In
Iran, rusk is called nān-e sokhāri (). It is made from wheat flour, sugar, skimmed milk powder, vegetable oil, gluten, malt extract, soy flour, salt, yeast, and water. It is eaten as a dunking biscuit, particularly with Persian chai (tea). The most common brand of naan sukhaari is Vitana.
Italy
In Italy, rusk is called fette biscottate (twice-baked slices). It should not be confused with biscotti (sweet cookies or biscuits).
Japan
In Japan, rusk is often a delicacy made from baguette, cake or croissant. It is often sweet.
The Levant
In the
Levant this form is called boksum () in
Iraq and
Syria or qurshalla () in
Jordan. It is made from flour, eggs, oil or butter, sugar, yeast or baking powder, and sometimes a small amount of
cardamon. It is topped with roasted
sesame seeds, black
caraway seeds, or anise, and eaten as a dunking biscuit, especially with herbal tea.
Netherlands and Belgium (Flanders)
Beschuit, also known as Dutch crispbakes, are light, round, rather crumbly, unsweetened rusks as eaten in the
Netherlands and
Belgium. When a baby is born in the Netherlands, it is customary to serve
beschuit met muisjes (with 'little mice', which are
covered in a white and pink or blue sugar layer, depending on the newborn's gender). Beschuiten are also eaten as a breakfast food with a variety of toppings, most commonly butter and sprinkles in flavours such as
chocolate (chocoladehagel or chocoladevlokken) or fruit (vruchtenhagel),
jam or cheese. A longtime Dutch favourite is to serve
strawberry on beschuit, which is usually topped with sugar or whipped cream.
Beschuiten are made by first baking a flat round bread (beschuitbol), slicing it in half, and then baking each half again, usually at a lower heat. It is almost always sold in rolls; a roll typically has 13 rusks (a baker's dozen). They became popular in the 17th century, as scheepsbeschuit, a food that keeps well during long sea journeys. Etymologically, biscotto (16th-century Italian), biscuit (19th century, from 16th-century bisket) and beschuit come from the Latin phrase (panis) bis-coctus, '(bread), twice cooked'.
Norway
In Norway, rusk is referred to as kavring, and is similar to the Swedish skorpor. Crushed kavring, called strøkavring, is used, amongst other things, for making
Frikadeller and in the traditional dessert
tilslørte bondepiker. Kavring is also broken up and can be served with regular, soured or cultured milk.
Pakistan
In Pakistan, rusk is colloquially known as russ (). It is either available as a spherical shape that is akin to a bun or as separate rectangular pieces. It is a popular breakfast food, and is usually eaten by dipping it into milk tea, locally known as doodh chai, to soften it. It is called papay (rtl=yes) in
Punjabi language.
Philippines
The Philippine version of rusk is called
biscocho. Cake rusks are called
Sponge cake tostado.
Portugal
The Portuguese version of rusk is called tosta. Tosta is a hard coarse-textured slice of bread – which can be sweet, but most often savory – and it can be of various shapes and thicknesses. It is often ground up and used as
bread crumbs.
Russia
The Russian version is called sukhar' (Cyrillic: сухарь), from сухой 'dry'. They are either baked a second time from sweet
challah-like bread, sliced in
biscotti fashion or made of leftover stale bread, cut into small cubes and air-dried or baked at a very low temperature. The first one is like a cookie, which can be served with milk,
kefir, tea, coffee or cacao. The second one is usually added to soup, clear or otherwise, softening up from absorbed liquids and accompanying it instead of bread. It became a tradition to avoid wasting leftover bread that always was a staple in Russian cuisine. There is much folklore about bread in the Russian language, paying respect to this grain food that is one of the cornerstones of Slavic nations' life and history. Rye bread rusks are the major ingredient in making of the Russian
kvass, a traditional fermented beverage.
South Africa
Definition
Rusks is the anglicized term for beskuit and is a traditional
Afrikaner breakfast meal or snack. They have been dried in South Africa since the late 1690s as a way of preserving bread, especially when traveling long distances without refrigeration. Their use continued through the
Great Trek and the
Boer Wars through to the modern day. Rusks are typically dunked in coffee or tea before being eaten.
Recipe
Rusks are essentially double-baked bread dough. Round balls of dough are closely packed in pans and baked like bread, after which long chunks are cut or broken off and slowly re-baked to a dry consistency. Several modern-day, mass-produced versions are available, the most famous brand being
Ouma Rusks. Many bakeries, delis, and home industries sell commercial rusks, sometimes made from non-traditional ingredients, such as
baking powder rather than sourdough. In addition to plain and
buttermilk flavours,
aniseed,
wholewheat,
condensed milk,
muesli, and lemon
poppyseed variations are also available.
Sweden
Skorpor (plural; singular skorpa) are a Swedish form of rusk. They are usually unflavoured or flavoured with
cardamom, but can also be flavoured with herbs, dried fruit, nuts, or spices such as
anise. Swedish bakery company Pågen makes the world's most-sold rusk brand, Krisprolls.
The traditional Swedish way to eat them is dipping them into a beverage such as
coffee,
milk or
juice.
Butter and possibly
cheese,
marmalade or
jam can be added on top; they may be eaten together with a beverage or a fruit soup.
Rusks are known in Sweden at least since the 16th century. Rusks were provisions in the military units and on ships. Back then they could also be crushed with a hammer and the crumbs ended up in svagdricka, beer and soup.
Turkey
In
Turkish language, rusk is called peksimet. Pek means 'solid, tight, durable' in Turkish and simet/simit is an Arabic word (rtl=yes) meaning 'bread' or 'flour'. Another name is galeta, a
loanword from
Catalan language.
United States
In the US, commonly available types of rusk include
melba toast and
croutons, which are sold packaged in grocery stores, and
biscotti, which are found both at grocery stores and coffee shops.
See also
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Bread crumbs, an ingredient sometimes used in a similar way to butcher rusk.
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Milk toast, some modern store-bought forms of which strongly resemble rusks with slight flavouring and sweeteners.
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Hardtack, a type of rusk historically eaten aboard ships.
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List of bread dishes
