A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread.
It is sometimes used as a baby teething food.
In the United Kingdom, the name also refers to a wheat-based food additive.
International variations Denmark
Tvebak is a Danish type of rusk.
France Biscottes and pain grillé are a French type
of rusk.
They are sold packaged in supermarkets.
Germany
Zwieback is a form of rusk eaten in Germany.
Like the Danish and French words, the name refers to being baked or cooked twice.
Greece The term paximadi covers various forms of
Greek rusk, made commonly from barley or chickpea flour, and softened with wine, water or oil
before eating.
Paximadi form the basis of the Cretan snack dakos.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh In India and Pakistan, rusk is a traditional
dried bread that is eaten after having been dipped in coffee or tea.
Italy In Italy, this form is called fette biscottate;
it should not be confused with biscotti.
Japan In Japan, rusk is often a delicacy made from
baguette, cake or even croissant.
It is often sweet.
The Levant In the Levant this form is called Boksum.
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
Beschuit, also known as Dutch crispbakes, are light, round, rather crumbly, rusks as
eaten in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Particularly in the Netherlands it is customary to serve beschuit met muisjes at the birth
of a baby.
Beschuiten are also eaten as a breakfast food with a variety of toppings, most commonly
butter and sprinkles in flavours such as chocolate or fruit, or cheese.
A longtime Dutch tradition is to serve strawberries on beschuit usually topped with some sugar
or whipped cream.
Beschuit is almost always sold in rolls; a roll typically has 13 rusks.
They are made by first baking a flat round bread, slicing it, and then baking each half
again, possibly at a lower heat, in the oven after the main baking is over.
Etymologically, biscotto, biscuit and beschuit come from Latin bis+coctus,.
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 kjøttkaker
and in the traditional dessert tilslørte bondepiker.
Philippines The Philippine version of rusk is called biskotso.
Cake rusks are called mamon tostado.
South Africa Rusks is the anglicized term for and is a
traditional Afrikaner breakfast meal or snack.
They have been dried in South Africa since the late 1690s as way of preserving bread,
especially when travelling 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.
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 rebaked 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 also 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 are a Swedish form of rusk.
They can be flavoured with herbs, dried fruit, nuts, or spices such as anise or cardamom.
Swedish bakery company Pågen makes the world's most-sold rusk brand, Krisprolls.
United Kingdom Butcher's rusk
To the British, 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 stale 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:
A carrier for flavours, colours and seasonings A binding agent in hamburgers, sausages, stuffings,
pies, and other compound meat products As an ingredient for dried stuffing mixes
Farley's Rusks In the United Kingdom, Farley's Rusks are
a dry 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.
They have a cult following among university students.
In 2006, a short-lived scare was caused when some Farley's Rusks were found to contain
traces of the weedkiller chlorpropham.
The affected products were recalled and the contamination was traced to a batch of flour
used during the manufacturing process.
The level of contamination was not high enough to be considered a health risk.
Cake rusk In the United Kingdom, a sweet quick bread
marketed as 'cake rusk' is sold in many foreign supermarkets and bakeries by the likes of
Kashmir Crown Bakeries, Regal Bakery and more recently by imported brands such as Crispy;
it is typically made from wheat flour, hydrogenated vegetable oil and/or margarine, sugar, baking
powder or other raising agent, and flavouring, often in that order.
It is sliced into bar-like strips and packaged in large plastic boxes.
United States In the U.S., commonly available types of rusk
include melba toast, which is sold packaged, in grocery stores, biscotti, which are found
both at grocery stores and at coffee shops or cafes, and Trenary toast, which is sold
packaged, in grocery stores.
See also
Milk toast, some modern store-bought forms of which strongly resemble rusks with slight
flavouring and sweeteners.