Dutch Treats. William Woys Weaver

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      Whichever dough you use, it should be given its final proofing in a mold previously greased and dusted with flour. Baking is done while the mold is on its side, one half serving as a “lid.” The baking temperature and time will be approximately the same as those given for each of the seven recommended doughs in their respective recipes, provided you position the mold on a middle rack in your oven. Keep in mind that cast iron tends to bake hot, so you may want to check on the lamb 10 minutes before it is done. Once fully baked, remove the lamb from the mold and cool it on a rack. It can be stored or frozen like common bread.

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.