Cake Rusk / Dry Cake

Cake Rusk / Dry Cake

In Bangladesh cake rusk is known as dry cake . Cake rusks are made of sliced plain pound cake or Victoria sponge , baked until golden and crispy . So the slices of cake are re-baked to get that biscotti effect . So sounds pretty simple ; bake a cake and then re-bake . But this re-bake part is very important . The common mistake we do is to re-bake the slices at high temperature . That causes browning of the cakes soon , rather then being crispy . Most of the time we end up with very dark colored cake rusks for this reason . But the secret is , if you want that golden color , re-bake it at low temperature . 🙂

Recently while making meringue cookies , I had two extra egg yolks . So wanted to make the best use of it , thought to apply these yolks to make cake rusks . Result is awesome . The cake is super soft , super yummy and so good are the cake rusks . The egg yolks helped the rusks to get that yellowish golden color more than the other recipe . I’ll share both the recipes as I love them both . 🙂

Recipe #1:

Ingredients:

3 Eggs , room temperature
2/3 rd cup of Butter+oil ( 1/3 rd cup butter, softened + 1/3 rd cup oil)
2/3 rd cup caster sugar ( powdered sugar)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
1 tea spoon of baking powder
Little yellow food color ( optional), though I never used , but many like the store bought yellowish rusks .

Procedure:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 FH . Grease a square / loaf or any baking pan .

2. Sieve the flour and baking powder together .

3. Cream the butter, oil and sugar until light and fluffy . Add in the eggs , one at a time and beat . Add the vanilla and food color . Now fold in the flour mixture to the cream mixture . Pour into the greased pan and bake immediately for 25- 30 minutes or until done .

4. Cool the cake completely before you cut it into slices , other wise you will find difficulty to cut the cake without breaking the slices .

5. Pre-heat the oven to 325 FH after 10 minutes you take out the cake from the oven . Pre-heat for 15 -20 minutes . In the mean time your cake will cool down , and you will be able to cut it into slices and arrange it on a baking tray . You don’t need to grease the baking tray , just place a parchment paper on the baking tray and arrange the slices of cake .

6. Reduce the oven heat to 300 FH and put the tray into the oven . Bake for 20 minutes . Now turn over the rusks and bake for another 20 minutes . Depending on the oven , the time may vary . Check after every 15 minutes . After completing 20 minutes and 20 minutes for each side , if you find them still not crispy , then take out the baking tray and increase the heat of the oven for 10 minutes . Then again put the baking tray into the oven and reduce the heat to lowest . After 10 minutes . Turn off the oven and keep the rusks few more minutes or until the oven cools down , depending how much heat is needed .

Recipe#2:

Follow the same method in making cakes and rusks , just the ingredients are different .

Ingredients:

1 egg + 2 egg yolks ( room temperature)
1/4 th cup oil+ 1/4 th cup butter
1/2 cup sugar, powdered
3/4 th cup + 2 tbl spoon all purpose flour ( if needed , other wise 3/4 th cup is fine)
1 tea spoon baking powder
2 tbl spoon of condensed milk
3 tbl spoon evaporated milk / regular milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Look at the color of the cake and trust me even if you don’t make cake rusks, this cake tastes just great as it is . 🙂

Tips/ Notes:

1. Try to make a dense cake to get that smooth texture of rusks . If the cake is airy and light , you will see many holes in the rusk , that doesn’t look good at all . To make the dense cake , your cake batter need to be bit heavy than regular . 🙂