Pastry Sandwiches
INGREDIENTS.-Puff-paste, jam of any kind, the white of an egg, sifted sugar. AVERAGE COST, with 1/2 lb. of paste, 8d.
Roll the paste out thin; put half of it on a baking-sheet or tin, and spread equally over it apricot, greengage, or any preserve that may be preferred. Lay over this preserve another thin paste; press the edges together all round, and mark the paste in lines with a knife on the surface, to show where to cut it when baked. Bake from 20 minutes to 1/2 hour; and, a short time before being done, take the pastry out of the oven, brush it over with the PATTIES, CHEESE. white of an egg, sift over pounded sugar, and put it back in the oven to colour. When cold, cut it into strips; pile these on a dish pyramidically, and serve.
TIME.-20 minutes to hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Pâte Brisée, Crust, French (for
A jam slice built from two sheets of puff pastry, glazed with egg white and sugar near the end of baking. The original assumes you know how puff paste behaves in a hot oven; here are the details it leaves out.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because the book predates thermostats. Puff pastry needs a hot start: 425F for the first 15 minutes, dropped to 375F to finish. A moderate oven will melt the butter out before the layers set and you will get a greasy, flat slab.
- QuantityHalf a pound of puff paste is the stated basis for the costing. Rolled thin, that will make two sheets of something like 8 by 10 inches, and a dozen or so fingers. A sheet of ready-rolled all-butter puff, cut in two, is the nearest modern equivalent.
- Score before you bakeMarking the cutting lines on the raw top sheet is the instruction that matters. Baked puff shatters under a knife, and the score lines let you cut clean strips afterwards. Cut through the top layer only, not down into the jam.
- Seal the edges properlyPress the borders together with a fork or the back of a knife and chill the assembled sheet for 20 minutes before baking. Warm, loosely sealed pastry lets the jam boil out at the sides and weld the whole thing to the tin.
- The jamApricot and greengage were both common preserves of the period, though the recipe allows any that may be preferred. Use a thick jam and spread it thin, leaving a clear inch at the edges; a loose modern conserve will bubble up and steam the top sheet soft.
- The egg-white glazeBrushing with lightly beaten egg white and dusting with icing sugar in the last five to eight minutes gives a crisp white-gold crackle rather than the brown gloss of a yolk wash. Watch it closely, as the sugar catches quickly.
- TimingTwenty to thirty minutes is right for pastry this thin. Judge it by the underside: lift a corner and look for an evenly coloured, dry base, not a pale damp one.
- ServingCool completely on a rack before cutting, or the jam runs. The pyramid presentation is Victorian table dressing; the strips keep their crispness better laid out in a single layer and are best eaten the day they are made.
Layered jam-and-puff slices of this kind appear in nineteenth-century English pastry work under names such as jam sandwiches and jam puffs. "Sandwich" is used here in the extended sense of something laid between two layers rather than anything involving bread. The costing line is characteristic of Beeton: eightpence for half a pound of paste plus preserve, set down for a household that kept accounts. The named fruits, apricot and greengage, were both preserves put up in fruit season.