Dutch Treats. William Woys Weaver

Lebanon Rusks or Potato Rusks

       Libanon Siesse Weck odder Gumbiere Rosk

      Throughout the greater Delaware Valley there are two traditional types of rusk: the dry twice-baked rusk or Zwieback and the so-called “fresh” rusk, which is not baked a second time, and which is treated as a tea cake or something special to be eaten with coffee. It was either sliced and toasted or crumbled into the coffee to make “coffee soup.” This latter type was quite popular among the Quakers, who may have contributed to its wide dissemination. The dough is similar (if not exactly the same) as the foundation dough used to make Philadelphia-style sticky buns. After baking the crumb is extremely light and will dry out easily, which is one reason the Dutch liked to add potatoes (this extended shelf life).

      There were also two distinctly different ways of baking rusks: professional bakeries preferred to prepare them in tall, square tins called bride cake pans, which resulted in rusks at least 4 inches (10cm) in height. This is the type of rusk sold by Harrisburg baker Henry Becker in 1852 under the name Lebanon Rusk, one of the earliest known references to the term. Bakeries like Becker’s probably favored this tin because bride cakes (a type of fruit cake), square loaves of bread, buns, and of course rusks, could be baked in them, thus reducing the need to invest in an array of specialized utensils. I have chosen this route in the baking instructions below, but you can also follow what was known as the “farmhouse style” by baking the rusks in shallow rusk pans like the one in the picture. This pan was common in farmhouse cookery because it was merely an adaptive reuse of a rectangular dripping pan. Indeed, rusk pans and dripping pans were functionally interchangeable.

      Regardless of shape the most famous Pennsylvania Dutch fresh rusks are called Lebanon Rusks, mainly because they were popularized by Church of the Brethren women from Lebanon County via The Inglenook, their widely read household magazine. Just the same, there is no evidence that potato rusks (like “Lebanon” bologna) were actually invented in Lebanon. In fact, our recipe traces to Lizzie S. Risser (1880-1950) of Elizabethtown, in Lancaster County.

       Yield: 30 rusks

       ¼ ounce (7.5g) dry active yeast

       1 cup (250ml) lukewarm potato water (98F/37C)

       1 cup (200g) warm mashed potatoes

       4 ounces (125g) unsalted butter

       1 cup (250g) superfine sugar (also called caster sugar)

       3 large eggs

       5½ cups (690g) bread flour 1 egg white

       Vanilla sugar

      Proof the yeast in the potato water. Once the yeast is foaming vigorously, combine this with the mashed potatoes and whip smooth. Cream the butter and sugar. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until lemon color and frothy, then combine with the creamed butter and sugar. Add this to the mashed potatoes and beat vigorously. Gradually sift in 4 cups (500g) of flour and work the batter into soft, sticky dough. Cover and allow to double in bulk in a warm place (1 ½ to 2 ½ hours, depending on the weather). Knock down and gently knead in the remaining 1 ½ cups (190g) of flour.

      Butter the hands and mold out 30 balls of dough, each weighing 2 ounces (60g). Place the balls close together and evenly spaced in two greased spring-form cake pans without center tubes – the dough balls must “kiss” in all directions. Keep in mind that when baked in cake tins rusks rise up very high, so the pans must be at least 4 inches (10cm) deep; otherwise, the dough will overflow. Cover and allow the dough to rise again until over double in bulk (roughly 1 hour or more) or until the rusks reach the rim of the cake tin or rusk pan (if you are using one).

      Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Beat the egg white until stiff and forming peaks, then brush it over the surface of the rusks. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar (or lacking that, granulated sugar). Then bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, if you prefer a dark crust. If you prefer a lighter crust, preheat the oven to 325F (165C) and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Once the rusks are done and tap hollow, remove from the oven and cake tins and cool on racks. Sprinkle again with sugar “to fill the valleys with snow,” as an old cook once told me. Best when served the same day they are baked.

       The Traditional Rusk Pan

      Fresh rusks, Schnecken – even Philadelphia Sticky Buns – were commonly baked in a specific type of pan called a rusk pan. The standard dimensions were 7½ by 16½ by 2 inches (19 by 41 by 5 cm). The best sorts were made of heavy gauge Russia iron, an imported metal with a bluish-gray tinge on the surface. Antique rusk pans are now extremely rare, because once their usefulness as baking utensils passed, they could be sold for good money as scrap metal. The rusks in the photograph on the previous page have been baked in a traditional pan dating from the 1860s.

New Year’s “Boys”

       Neijohrsbuwe

      Just as Christmas had its Mummeli (breads shaped like little men), New Year’s featured its own special bread made from similar dough (or you can use the dough for Butter Semmels, page 9). These distinctive rolls or buns were produced mostly by small-town bakers for Silvester Night Balls (December 31^st) held in local hotels and taverns, and one of them always contained a lucky coin. A huge eight-foot deep brick bake oven for making just such large-batch pastries survived well into the 1960s at the historic 1840s Quentin House Hotel in Quentin, near Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

      We know from the field work of late Pennsylvania Dutch folklorist Alfred L. Shoemaker that due to their connection with Silvester Night (New Year’s Eve), the rolls were also called Silvester Buns (Silvesterweck), although the rural Dutch seem to have preferred the more euphemistic Neijohrsbuwe (New Year’s Boys) in reference to the fact that the rolls have knobs or “heads” on the opposite ends, one for the old year and one for the new. This two-headed design appears to be traditional; however, the manner in which the rolls were decorated was a matter of personal fancy: some people preferred the so-called “two-headed fish” design shown in the picture. Others braided them to resemble heads of wheat or ornamented them with stars, swirling hex signs, or three X’s. Dr. Shoemaker also discovered that New Year’s Boys were given out to Belschnicklers when they went mumming house to house on Second Christmas (December 26). Otherwise, cookies and sweet pretzels were distributed instead like the orange pretzels on page 75.

      Our original recipe comes from Fannie Coble (1870-1954) of Elizabethtown in Lancaster County. If you have leftover Neijohrsbuwe you can always slice them, dip them in beaten eggs and cook like French toast.

       Yield: Six 7-inch (18cm) “Boys”

       1 cup (225g) warm mashed potatoes

       1 cup (250g) light brown sugar

       2 teaspoons salt

       ½ ounce (15g) dry active yeast

       1 cup lukewarm potato water or milk

       6 tablespoons (90g) melted butter