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Sweet Sandwiches
Clara Smith.
Five eggs, one-half pound white sugar, one-fourth pound butter, all beaten together until very light; add one-fourth pound flour, mixed with a teaspoonful of Cook's friend.
A whole-egg sponge batter meant to be baked thin, spread with jam and cut into fingers — the book assumes you know that part. The proportions are given by weight, which makes it easier to follow than most recipes of its date.
- Cook's friendA proprietary baking powder; the best-known Canadian brand of that name was McLaren's Cook's Friend. Substitute one level teaspoon of modern double-acting baking powder.
- The weightsHalf a pound of sugar is about 1 1/8 cups granulated; a quarter pound of butter is 1/2 cup, or one American stick; a quarter pound of flour is a scant cup, since flour runs roughly 4 1/4 oz to the cup. Weighing gives a far more reliable crumb than scooping here.
- "Beaten together until very light"This is the hinge. Eggs, sugar and softened butter must be whipped until pale, thick and ribboning — five to eight minutes with a stand mixer. There is no other leavening of consequence, and the single teaspoon of powder will not rescue an under-beaten batter.
- Folding the flourSift the flour with the baking powder and fold it in by hand in two or three additions. Beating it in at speed knocks out the air you just spent eight minutes building.
- Pan and ovenThe recipe gives no pan or oven instruction. Spread the batter about 1/4 inch deep on a parchment-lined half sheet pan and bake at 350F; a thin sheet of this batter is done in 10 to 14 minutes, when the surface springs back and the edges just colour.
- Making the sandwichesThe recipe names no filling; jam is the usual assumption for the form. Cool, cut the sheet in half crosswise, spread one half with jam warmed slightly so it spreads without tearing, top with the other and press gently. Trim the edges and cut into fingers about 1 inch by 3.
- YieldThey are best the day they are made; the jam softens the cake by the second day.
This comes from The Home Cook Book (Toronto, 1877), generally regarded as the first substantial Canadian community cookbook — compiled from contributions by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada" and sold in aid of the Hospital for Sick Children, which is why so many of its recipes carry a contributor's name like Clara Smith's. Sweet sandwiches belong to the Victorian tea table, where the savoury sandwich had a sugared counterpart: a thin baked sheet of cake split and filled with jam, cut small enough to be eaten standing with a cup of tea. The reliance on a branded baking powder is a good marker of the date; cookbooks of the period name brands as casually as we would name a type of flour.