1 pint of warm milk.
2 eggs.
½ teacup of butter.
Half a cup of yeast.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Set a sponge with these ingredients, leaving out the eggs, and stirring
in flour until you have a thick batter. Early next morning add the
well-beaten eggs, and flour enough to enable you to roll out the dough.
Let this rise in the bread-bowl two hours. Roll into a sheet nearly an
inch thick, cut into round cakes, and arrange in your baking-pan two
deep, laying one upon the other carefully. Let these stand for another
half-hour, and bake.
These are now very nice for eating, and you may, if you like, reserve
a plateful for tea; but the rule for the many, handed down through,
I am afraid to say how many generations, in the family where I first
ate this novel and delightful biscuit, is to divide the twins, thus
leaving one side of each cake soft, and piling them loosely in the
pan, set them in the oven when the fire is declining for the night,
and leave them in until morning. Then, still obeying the traditions of
revered elders, put them in a clean muslin bag, and hang them up in
the kitchen. They will be fit to eat upon the third day. Put as many
as you need in a deep dish, and pour over them iced milk, or water, if
you cannot easily procure the former. Let them soak until soft, take
them out, drain them for a minute in a shallow plate, and eat with
butter. Invalids and children crave them eagerly. Indeed, I have seen
few refuse them who had ever tasted them before. There is a pastoral
flavor about the pleasant dish, eaten with the accompaniment of fresh
berries, on a summer evening, that appeals to the better impulses of
one’s appetite.
Try my soaked rusk—not forgetting to ice the milk—and you will find out
for yourself what I mean, but cannot quite express.
Dried rusk will keep for weeks, and grow better every day. The only
risk is in their being eaten up before they attain maturity.