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Nut Bread Sandwiches
1 cup scalded milk. 1 tablespoon Cottolene. 1½ teaspoons salt. 2 tablespoons sugar or molasses. 1 yeast cake dissolved in 1/4 cup lukewarm water. 1 cup white flour.
Entire wheat flour. 1 cup pecan meats broken in pieces.
PROCESS: Put Cottolene, salt and sugar (or molasses) in a large mixing bowl and pour on scalded milk; when lukewarm add dissolved yeast cake, white flour, two cups entire wheat flour and nut meats. Mix well and turn on a well-floured board. Add more flour and knead until dough is smooth and elastic. Return to bowl, cover with a cloth; set to rise in a warm place. When more than double its bulk, turn on slightly floured board, knead and shape in a loaf. Place in a well-greased, brick-shaped pan (pan should be half full). Cover, let rise again to top of pan and bake in a moderate oven fifty minutes to one hour. When twenty-four hours old, cut in thin slices, remove crusts, spread one-half the slices generously with cream cheese, cover with remaining slices and cut in triangles.
A straightforward yeasted whole-wheat loaf with pecans, baked a day ahead so it will slice thin enough for tea sandwiches. Most of the translation work is in the shortening, the yeast and the flour names.
- CottoleneA branded cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the N. K. Fairbank Company, long discontinued. One tablespoon of butter or any solid vegetable shortening does the same job here.
- Yeast cakeA cake of compressed fresh yeast, roughly 0.6 oz. Substitute 2 1/4 teaspoons (one packet) of active dry yeast, still proofed in the 1/4 cup of lukewarm water.
- Entire wheat flourWhole wheat flour. The recipe lists it without a quantity in the ingredients but calls for two cups in the method, plus more on the board — expect to work in another half cup or so during kneading.
- Scalding the milkTraditionally explained as destroying enzymes or whey proteins in raw milk that slacken dough. With pasteurized milk many bakers consider it unnecessary and simply warm the milk to lukewarm before adding the yeast.
- Moderate oven350F. Fifty minutes to an hour is right for a full loaf pan; the interior should read about 195F when done.
- Brick-shaped panA standard 9x5-inch loaf tin. Filling it half full and letting the dough rise to the rim is the guide, not the clock.
- The 24-hour waitThis is the hinge. Fresh nut bread tears under a knife; a day of resting firms the crumb so it will take a thin, clean slice with the crusts trimmed off.
- Cream cheeseThe unstabilized fresh cheese of the period was probably softer than modern block cream cheese, likely closer to Neufchâtel. Let a modern brick soften fully, or thin it with a spoonful of cream, so it spreads without dragging the slices apart.
- YieldOne loaf, giving roughly 20 to 24 thin slices: 10 to 12 sandwiches, or 20 to 24 triangles.
52 Sunday Dinners belongs to a genre that flourished in the first decades of the twentieth century: the branded cookbook, published by a manufacturer and organized so that its product appears in nearly every recipe. Cottolene was a cottonseed-oil shortening marketed by the N. K. Fairbank Company of Chicago as a cheaper, more "wholesome" stand-in for lard, and its appearance in a single tablespoon here is as much advertising as cookery. The dish itself reflects two enthusiasms of the same moment. Whole-wheat or "entire wheat" flour was being pressed on American households by health reformers as a corrective to overly refined white flour, and nut breads — usually pecan or walnut, often sweetened with molasses — spread quickly through community and church cookbooks of the era. Pairing the loaf with cream cheese and cutting it into crustless triangles places it squarely in the afternoon-tea and luncheon-sandwich fashion, which is why the recipe insists on a day-old loaf: the whole point is a slice thin enough to be genteel.