Cookaholics Bulletin Board

All,

I borrowed a Belgian/Dutch cookbook from the library, and it has a recipe I want to try except that it requires "rusks, crumbled". The cookbook doesn't explain further. Now, I'm used to Greek barley rusks, but I don't know what a Belgian would mean by "rusk", and Google isn't helping any. Ideas?

(searching on Google led me to a page with this helpful advice: "Common salt from Okinawa which is pearl sugar from Belgium, a secret ingredien. It is the genuine taste that was particular about beginning material and the traditional manufacturing method.")

When I read it I immediately got a picture in my head of a cookie that looks like a toasted piece of sponge cake (sort of sweet melba toast). Have no clue if that is correct, but just in case.....

Fuzzy,

I remember Holland Rusk from my childhood. It was a round bread that was baked to become a totally dry toast. When we were sick we had milk toast for dinner; butter cream and toast with cinnamon sugar.

Tim

I think my mother game them to the babies when they were teething. As I recall, and if I'm remembering the right thing, they were dry as a bone and a baby could chew on them for quite a while.

Tim, I loved milk toast when I was a kid.

fitzie

In South Africa a rusk is a hard biscuit eaten for breakfast or afternoon tea dipped in tea or coffee. They are harder than a biscotti and quite tasty. Buttermilk rusks, the most common I saw, look like innocent little buttermilk biscuits until you pick one you and realize they are hard and heavy enough to be used as a tool for assault & battery.

Here is a recipe I have used in the past:
http://drizzleanddip.com/2011/07/11/a-classic-buttermilk-rusk-recipe

--Lisa

Thanks, all, especially Tim. I used some melba toast, seemed to work fine.

Slightly sweet thick toast/cracker round. My supermarket carries them.