Rusk Pudding.
8 light, stale rusk.
A little more than 1 quart of milk.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
½ cup powdered sugar, ½ teaspoonful soda.
Flavor to taste, with lemon, vanilla or bitter almond.
Pare every bit of the crust from the rusk, wasting as little as possible. Crumb them fine into a bowl and pour a pint of milk boiling hot over them. Cover and let them stand until cold. Make a raw custard of the rest of the milk, the eggs and the sugar. Stir the soda, dissolved in hot water, into the soaked rusk, when they are cold, put in the custard. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking-dish—the same in which it is to be served—and bake in a brisk oven. It should puff up very light.
Sift powdered sugar over the top and eat warm with sweet sauce. Cream sauce is particularly good with it.
This is a good way to use up stale buns, rusk, etc. But they must be really good at first, or the pudding will be a failure. Rusks soon dry out, and become comparatively tasteless. Never try to renew their youth by steaming them. You will only make them as sour and flat as a twice-told tale.