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Jam Sandwiches
Mix the yolks of two eggs very smoothly with a table-spoonful of flour and a table-spoonful of ground rice, add a very small pinch of salt, a table-spoonful of sugar, half a pint of thick cream, and a quarter of a pint of new milk. Beat the whites of the eggs to a firm froth, add them last of all, and beat the mixture for four or five minutes. Butter two large plates, put in the mixture, and bake in a quick oven until it is set and lightly browned. Spread a little jam over one of the cakes and lay the other upon it, the browned part uppermost. Sift a little sugar over it before serving. Jam sandwiches may be eaten either hot or cold. Time, twenty minutes to bake. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. Sufficient for three or four persons.
This is not a sandwich in the bread sense but a pair of thin baked batter cakes with jam between them — closer to a baked pancake or a soft clafoutis than to a sponge. The batter is very liquid, which is the point.
- Imperial measuresCassell's is a British book, so a pint is 20 fl oz: half a pint of cream is 1 1/4 US cups and a quarter pint of milk is 2/3 cup. Using US pints will give a batter noticeably too dry.
- Quick ovenRoughly 400-450F; the book gives no temperature, and 'quick' was an unstandardised term. At that heat the thin batter sets and colours quickly, and the recipe's own test is that the cakes are set and lightly browned.
- Ground riceRice ground to a meal, coarser than modern rice flour and the same product sold for rice puddings. It gives the cake a slightly sandy, short texture; rice flour is the nearest substitute.
- New milkSimply fresh whole milk, as distinct from the skimmed or stale milk a Victorian household might otherwise have on hand. "Thick cream" means what we call heavy or double cream.
- Buttered platesThe recipe means plates that will take the oven; two 8- or 9-inch shallow round tins or metal pie plates do the same job. The batter should lie no more than about 1/4 inch deep, or it will never set in twenty minutes.
- The hingeThe recipe adds the beaten whites last and then beats the mixture for four or five minutes, which will knock much of the air out; if you want a lighter cake, fold them in instead and bake at once.
- AssemblyWarm the jam slightly so it spreads without tearing the delicate cake, and sandwich while both halves are still warm. Sift sugar over just before it goes to the table.
- YieldThree or four servings, as stated. The recipe says they may be eaten either hot or cold, though they are at their lightest fresh from the oven.
The heavy reliance on cream, egg and rice flour rather than raising agents marks it as an older kind of batter cake, related to the baked pancakes and "puddings in a plate" that appear throughout nineteenth-century English cookery; the use of ground rice was widespread in Victorian baking, valued for the short, tender crumb it gave. The name is simply descriptive. The costing at 1s 4d, a feature of most of the recipes in the dictionary, was part of Cassell's appeal to middle-class households running on a fixed weekly allowance for the kitchen.