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ROCKS FOR CHEESE (frequently called Pulled Bread)
Take a half-baked loaf or one that is perfectly new; tear off the crust, and with two forks pull the crumb into pieces the size of a Brazil nut. Lay these on a tin, put them in a brisk oven, and bake till they are crisp and brown. Serve with the cheese course.
Pulled bread is one of the simplest things in the book and depends almost entirely on the loaf and the oven. Two details carry it: the crumb must be torn rather than cut, and the pieces must dry through rather than merely colour.
- "Brisk oven"Usually taken as somewhere around 400-425F. At that heat the nuggets colour quickly but may still be soft inside; a slower oven, nearer 350F for 15-20 minutes, dries them through to the centre. The recipe itself gives no temperature or time, only "till they are crisp and brown."
- A half-baked loafThis means par-baked bread, pulled from the oven before the crust sets. Supermarket "bake at home" part-baked loaves are the direct modern equivalent. Otherwise use a plain white loaf baked that morning.
- Why new breadFresh crumb tears into ragged, open-textured lumps with plenty of surface. Day-old bread crumbles or cuts into smooth blocks and gives you croutons instead of rocks.
- Tear, do not cutThe forks are the whole point. Torn faces catch the heat unevenly and crisp into peaks and hollows; a knife gives flat sides that toast dully.
- SizeA Brazil nut is about an inch long. Keep the pieces roughly even or the small ones scorch before the large ones dry.
- Fat and saltThe original uses neither, and the result is deliberately austere, meant to carry cheese rather than compete with it. A brushing of oil turns it into something closer to a crouton.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives neither. A standard 1 lb loaf should make enough for a cheese course for several people, and once completely cold the rocks will keep for some days in an airtight tin, reviving in a low oven.
Pulled bread was served at English dinners of the period with the cheese, alongside biscuits and butter, its appeal textural: a dry, crisp crumb to set off a hard cheese without the salt and snap of a cracker. The recipe's allowance for a half-baked loaf suggests it could also use up bread that had come out of the oven underdone or was too fresh to slice cleanly. The alternative name "rocks for cheese" is a plain description of the finished look, and pulled bread is still met with occasionally in Britain as an accompaniment to potted meats and pat ameribution of the name to Cassell's cannot be confirmed from the page as given.