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Wedding Sandwich Rolls
Late in the evening make a rather stiff potato sponge (see directions under "Bread-Making"), and in the morning mix in as much flour as will make a soft dough, knead well, and place to rise; when sufficiently light, knead down again, repeating the operation two or three times, remembering not to let the dough become sour by rising too light; mold into common-sized loaves, place in your dripping-pan to rise, and bake very carefully, so as to secure the very slightest brown crust possible. On taking out of the oven, roll in a cloth tightly wrung out of water, with a large bread-blanket folded and wrapped around all. Let cool three or four hours, cut lengthwise of the loaf (not using the outside piece), first spreading lightly with good sweet butter, then cutting in slices not more than a quarter of an inch, or just as thin as possible, using for this purpose a very thin, sharp knife; lay on cold boiled ham cut in very thin shavings (no matter if in small pieces), roll up very slowly and carefully, and place where it will not unroll. Treat each sandwich in the same manner, always spreading the bread with butter before cutting. If by chance the bread is baked with too hard a crust, cut off a thin shaving of the brownest part very smoothly before making into sandwiches. These sandwiches are truly delicious if properly made, but they require great care, experience, and good judgment. Served on an oblong platter, piled in pyramid style, row upon row, they will resemble nicely rolled dinner napkins. They must be made and served the same day. -Mrs. James W. Robinson.
A recipe for rolled ham sandwiches that is really a bread recipe with a serving trick attached. Everything depends on getting a soft, pale, tight-crumbed loaf that will bend without cracking.
- The hinge: butter before you cutThe instruction is easy to skim past but it is the whole method. You spread the cut face of the loaf with softened butter, then shave off that buttered slice, so the butter supports the sheet of bread rather than tearing it. Repeat for each slice.
- Potato spongeA yeast sponge built on mashed potato and its cooking water, set overnight; the quantities are not given here but under the book's "Bread-Making" directions, so any figures are a reconstruction. The starch keeps the crumb soft and slightly moist, which is what lets it roll. Modern instant yeast can stand in for the yeast the original sponge relied on.
- "Do not let it become sour"The overnight sponge in an unheated 1877 kitchen fermented slowly. In a modern warm room it will go acetic and slack much faster. Set it in the coolest spot you have, or the refrigerator, and judge by smell rather than by hours.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because the point is a crust that barely colors. A moderate oven, roughly 325-350F, on the lower rack, and pull the loaves when they sound hollow and are barely blond. A dripping-pan is a roasting pan; the recipe does not say whether the loaves touch.
- The wet cloth wrapWrapping a hot loaf in a damp cloth steams the crust soft and traps moisture in the crumb. The "bread-blanket" is simply a thick towel to slow the cooling. Three or four hours is not optional padding; a warm loaf will not slice at a quarter inch.
- SlicingCut lengthwise down the loaf, discarding the first outside slab. A long thin-bladed slicer or an electric knife works; a serrated bread knife tears at this thickness. Slices of 1/8 inch roll more willingly than the quarter inch allowed here.
- The hamCold boiled ham shaved fine. Any good cooked ham sliced to deli thinness does the job, and scraps are explicitly welcome since the roll hides them.
- Yield and holdingYield depends entirely on how thin you slice and the recipe gives no count. The note that they must be served the same day is accurate: the bread stiffens and the rolls loosen overnight. Hold them seam-down, packed tight, under a damp cloth for a few hours at most.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping came out of Marysville, Ohio in 1877, assembled from contributions credited to named local women, and this entry carries Mrs. James W. Robinson's name in the way a church-supper recipe card would. Rolled sandwiches of this kind belong to the ornamental end of late-nineteenth-century American entertaining, where food was judged as much by appearance as flavor; the comparison to rolled dinner napkins piled in a pyramid is the point of the dish, and explains why so much labor goes into a loaf whose virtue is that it will not crack. The potato sponge belonged to a period when bakers kept bread soft with what was in the cellar rather than with commercial dough conditioners, and the warnings about souring reflect overnight fermentation in a kitchen with no thermostat. The closing admission that these require great care, experience, and good judgment suits a book that largely addressed a reader who could already bake.