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Wedding Sandwich Rolls
Late in the evening make a rather stiff potato sponge (see directions under "Bread-Making"), and in the morning mix in as much flour as will make a soft dough, knead well, and place to rise; when sufficiently light, knead down again, repeating the operation two or three times, remembering not to let the dough become sour by rising too light; mold into common-sized loaves, place in your dripping-pan to rise, and bake very carefully, so as to secure the very slightest brown crust possible. On taking out of the oven, roll in a cloth tightly wrung out of water, with a large bread-blanket folded and wrapped around all. Let cool three or four hours, cut lengthwise of the loaf (not using the outside piece), first spreading lightly with good sweet butter, then cutting in slices not more than a quarter of an inch, or just as thin as possible, using for this purpose a very thin, sharp knife; lay on cold boiled ham cut in very thin shavings (no matter if in small pieces), roll up very slowly and carefully, and place where it will not unroll. Treat each sandwich in the same manner, always spreading the bread with butter before cutting. If by chance the bread is baked with too hard a crust, cut off a thin shaving of the brownest part very smoothly before making into sandwiches. These sandwiches are truly delicious if properly made, but they require great care, experience, and good judgment. Served on an oblong platter, piled in pyramid style, row upon row, they will resemble nicely rolled dinner napkins. They must be made and served the same day. -Mrs. James W. Robinson.
This is a bread recipe with a sandwich technique attached, and the bread is engineered for a single purpose: a soft, close-grained, pale-crusted loaf that can be sliced paper-thin and rolled without cracking. Get the crust wrong and nothing else works.
- The hinge: butter before you sliceThe instruction to spread the cut face of the loaf with butter and only then cut the slice off is the whole trick. A 1/8- to 1/4-inch slice will tear if you try to butter it after it is free; buttering the standing face supports it, and the slice comes away already dressed.
- Potato spongeThe recipe sends the reader to the book's "Bread-Making" section rather than giving the sponge here; period potato sponges were generally mashed potato and its cooking water with flour and yeast, left overnight. The potato starch is usually credited with keeping the crumb moist and fine-grained, which suits a rolled sandwich. A modern overnight sponge at cool room temperature with a small quantity of instant yeast (on the order of 1/2 teaspoon to 3 cups flour) will get you to a similar place; the warning about the dough turning sour is a warning about over-long fermentation in a warm kitchen.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the goal is unusual: the palest crust possible. In a modern oven that means a moderate-to-low heat -- somewhere around 325F -- baked longer than you would normally bake a loaf, so the crumb cooks through without taking much colour. Baking in a covered pan or a lidded pullman tin is another way to hold the colour back.
- Dripping-panThe rectangular pan that sat under a roast. Here it is simply a large flat baking pan; the loaves are set on it to rise and bake free-form. A pullman loaf tin gives a squarer loaf and neater rolls.
- The damp cloth and bread-blanketWrapping the hot loaf in a wrung-out cloth under a folded blanket steams the crust soft and holds the loaf warm so it cools slowly and evenly. This is not optional decoration; it is what makes a thin slice pliable rather than brittle. A clean, damp tea towel inside a dry one works.
- Cut lengthwiseThe slices run the length of the loaf, not across it, so each one is long enough to roll into a cylinder. Discard the first cut (the outer face) and any browned edge.
- The hamCold boiled ham shaved thin. Any good cooked ham sliced on a machine will do, and the recipe is explicit that broken scraps are fine since the roll hides them.
- Holding the rolls"Place where it will not unroll" is left unexplained; in practice it means keeping them packed close enough, seam-down, that they cannot spring open. The instruction to make and serve them the same day is sound: thin buttered bread stales and hardens quickly.
- YieldThe recipe says only "common-sized loaves." Cutting lengthwise, the number of slices depends on the loaf's depth: at a quarter-inch, a loaf of ordinary depth will give somewhere in the region of a dozen usable slices once the outside piece is discarded, and one roll per slice.
Rolled bread-and-ham sandwiches are often associated with late 19th-century American wedding receptions, church socials and afternoon teas, where food had to look like an arrangement rather than a meal, and where the ability to produce a loaf that could be cut a quarter-inch thin was a genuine display of skill. The comparison the author reaches for is telling: piled in rows, the rolls should resemble napkins. Potato-based sponges were widely used in American home bread-making of the period, both because mashed potato and its water fed the yeast and because the resulting crumb stayed soft for longer in kitchens without reliable storage. The Dixie Cook-Book, like most compilations of its type, credits contributions to named local women, and Mrs. Robinson's closing admission that the recipe demands "great care, experience, and good judgment" is unusually honest for a genre that generally promised ease.