Eggless Pistachio Cake Rusk is a flavourful double baked crispy rusk perfect to be served with a cup of coffee or tea.
I get many messages to post a recipe for cake rusk. Though we get rusk in bakeries, I have never seen cake rusk. So I just Googled to find out what the hype was about. It was very similar to Italian Biscotti, the only difference is that instead of twice baking cookies, this was twice baking cake. I was immediately interested.
When I get a chance to bake a cake, I am always ready for it. For the base, I made a pistachio cake which actually turned out just amazing. I didn’t even want to go through the double baking and wanted to straight away binge on the cake slices. But I controlled my desire and went ahead to make the rusk.
To make it into a pistachio cake, I powdered some pistachios along with sugar and added it to the batter. Whenever I powder nuts, I add sugar to it, as it prevents the over grinding and oily nuts. You also finish two works in a single step – powder the nuts and powder your sugar. And your jar remains clean. You can source slivered pistachios from Amazon. This is what I use in all my recipes.
Add more pistachios on the batter to make it nutty and beautiful.
Before you slice for rusk, leave the cake to cool completely. A hot cake crumbles a lot whereas a cool cake slices up perfectly. Don’t worry about the dome. It adds a beauty to your cake as well as the rusk. But still if you want a flat top, either reduce temperature by 20C or bake it with an aluminium foil on top.
Look at the texture of the cake. It was just amazing. No one will believe that it is eggless. It is soft, moist, fluffy and so full of flavour.
Enjoy one or two slices in the name of taste test before baking it further. It is indeed very delicious.
If you have tried baking rusk, you know that it tests your patience. It always stays soft when you take it out of oven and hardens as soon as it cools down. Over baking is quite easier when it comes to rusks. So you need to be really careful. It is always preferable to under bake than over bake. An under baked rusk can be baked further to turn it crisp. But an over baked rusk becomes really hard and there is nothing you can do to bring back the crispness.
My advice is to keep flipping the slices now and then and see if it is crisping up. When the centre is slightly soft to touch, remove it from heat. The remaining heat will crisp it up. Don’t aim for crisp rusk out of oven, then you will end up with rock hard rusks when cool.
Eggless Pistachio Cake Rusk
Ingredients
- 75 g Maida
- 50 g Milk Powder
- 25 g Custard Powder
- 75 g Sugar powdered
- 20 g Pistachios
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 50 ml Oil
- 150 ml Milk
- Pistachios for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160C.
- Add sugar and pistachios and grind until fine.
- Add it along with maida, custard powder, milk powder and baking powder.
- Add oil and milk and mix to form thick batter.
- Pour it into a lined 5” square tin and top it with more pistachios.
- Bake in oven for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Transfer to a wire rack and allow the cake to cool completely.
- Slice it into evenly thick squares or rectangles.
- Arrange them on a baking tray and bake at 150C for 15 minutes. Flip the rusks and bake further for ten more minutes.
- Remove the pieces when they are slightly soft at the centre and allow them to cool completely on the tray.
- Store in airtight box.
