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German Sandwiches
Use Zweiback (see p. 61). Spread slices, thinly cut, with jelly or marmalade, and sprinkle with finely cut English walnut meats. Cover with thinly cut slices and remove crusts.
A two-minute assembly job whose success rests entirely on the bread. Fannie Farmer's zwieback is a lightly sweetened milk bread, baked, sliced, and returned to a slow oven to dry and brown; whether you use it soft or crisp changes the sandwich completely.
- Zwieback, then and nowThe book's own recipe (p. 61) is a home-baked enriched loaf, twice-baked into golden rusks. Commercial zwieback today is a hard, sweet toast sold mainly as a teething biscuit; it will shatter rather than cut. If you are not baking the loaf, use a fine-crumbed brioche or challah, sliced thin and dried briefly in a 300F oven until firm but still sliceable.
- Cut before you dry"Thinly cut" and "remove crusts" only work on bread that still has some give. Slice about 1/4 inch, trim the crusts, then crisp the slices if you want the drier texture. Trying to trim a fully dried rusk produces crumbs.
- English walnutSimply the common walnut, Juglans regia, named to distinguish it from the American black walnut, which is stronger and more resinous. Either works, but black walnut will dominate a delicate jelly. Toast the nuts lightly and chop them fine so the top slice sits flat.
- Jelly or marmaladeA clear, firm jelly (currant, quince, crabapple) holds its shape between thin slices; a loose jam soaks through and collapses the bread. Marmalade is the recipe's stated alternative, and its slight bitterness sits well against walnut.
- Assemble lateThese go soft within an hour or two, especially with marmalade. Cut and fill no more than half an hour before serving, and keep them under a barely damp cloth rather than in the refrigerator.
- Yield and servingHalve or quarter the finished sandwiches for a tea tray. A sweet sandwich of this kind would suit tea or coffee rather than a savory course.
Zwieback is German for "twice-baked," the same idea as Italian biscotti and French biscotte: bread dried in a cool oven so it keeps for weeks without staling. It reached American kitchens largely through German and Central European immigrant baking and was familiar in the United States by the late nineteenth century, valued as a nursery and invalid food as much as a tea bread. The name "German Sandwiches" appears to follow from the zwieback rather than from any particular German tradition; the fashion for thin, crustless, sweet-filled sandwiches at afternoon tea was thoroughly Anglo-American. Nuts, cream cheese and chopped olives turn up repeatedly as fillings in sandwich chapters of the period.