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Loaf Sandwich
Remove crusts from a loaf of bread and cut in slices lengthwise of loaf. Spread each slice with different colored fillings, such as cream cheese, softened with cream; mixed with chopped pimiento, to give red color; mixed with green coloring or some green addition such as parsley butter or spinach juice; mixed with hard cooked egg yolks for yellow. Any number of such variations will be suggested for color. Or savory fillings may be combined in the one loaf--ground ham mixed with mayonnaise, cheese creamed with a few drops onion juice, sardine paste, chopped pickles, hard cooked eggs chopped fine. Place the spread slices together in original form of loaf and press together. Cover with cream cheese softened with a little cream--coloring and garnishing as desired--and set in ice box to harden. Slice off as for bread, to serve.
This is the frosted sandwich loaf that anchored luncheon tables between the wars: a whole loaf rebuilt in horizontal layers, iced like a cake and sliced at the table. Almost everything depends on the bread and the chilling.
- Buy the right loafYou want a close-grained, square-sided white sandwich loaf, ideally a Pullman or pain de mie, at least a day old. Airy modern bakery bread tears when cut lengthwise and collapses under the fillings.
- Cutting lengthwiseTrim all four crusts flat, then cut four or five horizontal slabs about half an inch thick using a long serrated knife and a sawing motion. Steadying the loaf with your palm rather than gripping it keeps the slices even.
- Fillings must be stiffAnything loose will slide and weep into the bread. Drain pimiento and chopped pickle on paper towels, squeeze spinach dry, and keep the cream cheese barely softened -- spreadable but not pourable.
- Onion juice and spinach juicePeriod recipes generally called for grating the vegetable and pressing the liquid out through cloth. A little grated onion does the same job; for green, use finely minced parsley or spinach rather than juice, which mostly adds water.
- Sardine pasteOnce sold in tins as a spread. Mash drained oil-packed sardines with softened butter and a squeeze of lemon to the same effect.
- Frosting the loafThe recipe gives no quantities; reckon on somewhere between 8 and 16 oz of cream cheese loosened with a couple of tablespoons of cream to coat an average loaf. Frost the top and long sides; leaving the ends bare shows off the layers.
- Chilling is the hingeThe recipe presses the loaf together, covers it with cream cheese, then sets it in the ice box to harden; give it at least three hours, preferably overnight, before slicing. Under-chilled, it will not hold a clean cut; the pressing and the cold are what turn separate slices back into a loaf.
- Keeping and yieldA four-layer loaf gives roughly 10 to 12 slices, enough for a luncheon for six. With ham, egg or fish fillings it should be kept refrigerated and eaten within a day.