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Sweet Sandwiches
820. The weight of two eggs in butter, sugar, and flour; beat the butter to a cream, the eggs should also be well beaten by themselves, mix all together, spread on a flat tin, and bake in a moderate oven. (They should be watched, as they are apt to burn). When taken out of the oven, they must be cut immediately into the shape required; as, when cold, they break into pieces. Before serving them, spread a layer of preserves, such as strawberry, raspberry, or plum; lay on this a second piece of the pastry, as for meat sandwiches, and trim the edges neatly.
A thin pound-cake batter baked flat, then cut and layered with jam — essentially a Victorian jam-sponge slice. The hinge is cutting it the moment it leaves the oven; cold, it shatters.
- Weight of two eggsTwo eggs in shell weigh roughly 4 oz (115 g) together, though egg size varies, so take about 115 g each of butter, sugar and flour. Weighing against the eggs on a balance still works and is the most faithful method.
- No raising agentThere is no baking powder here — the lift comes entirely from creaming the butter and beating the eggs to a thick foam. Beat the eggs until pale and ribboning, and fold rather than stir the flour in.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 350F (175C). Because the layer is thin it colours fast; the warning that they burn easily is real, and 12–15 minutes is usually enough.
- The tinA "flat tin" means a baking sheet with a shallow rim or a Swiss-roll tin, lined with parchment; the recipe gives no size. Spread the batter thinly, about a quarter-inch deep; thicker and it behaves like a cake rather than a sandwich layer.
- Cut while hotMark and cut the sheet into fingers or squares straight from the oven while it is still pliable. Once cooled it turns brittle and crumbles at the knife, exactly as the recipe says.
- The preserveWarm the jam slightly and sieve out the seeds if you want clean edges; a stiff, well-set preserve holds the two layers together far better than a loose modern conserve.
- YieldOne sheet gives roughly 12 to 16 finished sandwiches, depending on how small you cut them. They are best assembled within a few hours of serving, as the jam softens the sponge overnight.
The source book, published in the late 1850s, sits at the point where the sandwich was moving from tavern food to the tea table, and this entry shows the borrowing plainly: the instruction is to build and trim it "as for meat sandwiches". The batter itself is an older idea — the weight-of-eggs formula, in which butter, sugar and flour are each balanced against the eggs, belongs to the same family as pound cake and appears in English receipt books of the period. Baking that batter thin on a sheet rather than in a hoop gave something that could be cut to a shape, and jam-layered fingers of this kind were a familiar feature of the tea table as preserves became a cheaper store-cupboard item.