Whenever I share Japanese sandwich recipes, JOC readers often ask me what to do with the crusts I trim off. For the uninitiated, we commonly serve Japanese sandwiches with crustless bread. You might ask where this practice comes from. Well, Japanese sandwiches were introduced by the British so we have been slicing off the bread crusts and making sandwiches similar to English tea sandwiches. I believe this gives a clean line to the presentation and yields a sandwich that is soft and tender to bite. When I prepare one or two sandwiches for my children’s school lunch, I snack on those crusts instead of tossing them away. However, when I make a lot of sandwiches for my entire family, I can’t eat all the crusts so I save them up to make a sweet snack. No wasting food in my house! In the recent Netflix series The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, the last episode ends with the main character Kiyo frying up the bread crusts to make pan no mimi rusks. And this is exactly how we repurpose the cut-off crusts, by turning them into amazingly crunchy and remarkably fun treats to munch on.
What are Rusks?
Have you heard of rusks before? Rusks (ラスク, ras-ku) are hard, dry biscuits or twice-baked bread that come in many variations, including both sweet and savory. Many countries have their own versions of rusks, from table toasts to biscottis to crisp bread. A lot of Japanese articles that I read said the origin of the Japanese-style rusks comes from zwieback in Germany. In Japan, rusks are mostly considered a sweet food. We usually make rusks by pan-frying or baking bread or cake and coating them with butter and sugar, almond slices, or chocolate and flavored chocolate. In The Makanai, Kiyo deep-fried the crusts in a pot filled with cooking oil and then finished with sugar. Technically, in Japan, we usually call these deep-fried crusts pan no mimi age-pan (パンの耳揚げパン) and would not call them “rusks” as they don’t have the signature buttered taste. So for my version, I coat the crusts with melted butter and sugar and then baked until golden brown. These shokupan crust rusks are crispy, buttery, and sugary!
How to Make Shokupan Crust Rusks
Ingredients You’ll Need
Crusts from Japanese milk bread Unsalted butter Sugar
Overview: Cooking Steps
Cooking Tips
Bake the crusts until thoroughly dry and crispy – It’s very important to start with dry bread crusts. If the white crumb part is soft, they take forever to become crispy during the final bake. Use a low oven temperature (I used 250ºF/120ºC) for this step. Use a pastry brush to coat the crusts with butter and sugar – I’ve tried coating the crusts in the melted butter in the frying pan. It’s quite challenging and frustrating as some of the crusts are not straight and they don’t want to face down to absorb the melted butter. Since then, I’ve been using the pastry brush to coat the crusts with melted butter and it’s been stress-free! It doesn’t take much time with this method and uses slightly less butter. This recipe is supposed to be buttery and sweet, so don’t reduce the amount of butter and sugar. Bake until golden and crispy – The crusts should be crispy/crunchy and golden brown. You can hear the crunchy and crispy sound when you touch the crusts.
Saving Shokupan Crusts for Later
You may not always have the time to make Shokupan Crust Rusks after you make sandwiches. Don’t throw away the crust strips or the end slices! Put them in a freezer bag or airtight container and keep them in the freezer until you’re ready to use! Maybe you may save up a week’s worth of crust strips and make the shokupan crust rusks on the weekend. If you have end slices, cut them into strips before you freeze them. That way, you can put frozen strips straight into the oven to dry them out (the first step of the recipe)! My children absolutely love these shokupan crust rusks. Hope you and your family enjoy this snack!
Japanese Sandwich Recipes
Fruit Sando Tamago Sando Katsu Sando Wanpaku Sando
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