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Apple Butter Sandwich
On thin slices of lightly buttered white bread, spread apple butter. Sprinkle chopped candied orange peel, cover with another slice of bread.
A three-ingredient sandwich that lives or dies on the thickness of the bread and the quality of the apple butter. Nothing here needs converting, but a few points are worth making.
- Thin means thinThe recipe specifies only "thin slices." For a sandwich of this kind the filling is meant to dominate, so slice a firm white sandwich loaf about 1/4 inch thick, or buy thin-sliced. A day-old loaf slices more cleanly than fresh. Trimming the crusts is optional and not called for here.
- Butter first, and for a reasonThe thin film of butter acts as a moisture barrier between the wet apple butter and the crumb. Skip it and the bread will soften. Have the butter soft enough to spread without tearing the slice.
- Apple butterCommercial apple butter today is often sweeter and looser than the long-cooked farmhouse kind. If yours is thin, cook it down in a wide pan for a few minutes and let it cool completely before spreading.
- Candied orange peelStill sold, usually in the baking aisle around the winter holidays or from a good grocer year-round. Chop it fine — about 1/8 inch pieces — so it does not drag the bread apart. Mixed "candied fruit peel" tubs contain citron and other rind alongside the orange, so single-variety peel is preferable.
- ProportionsThe original gives none. Roughly 2 teaspoons apple butter and 1 teaspoon chopped peel per sandwich works; a cup of apple butter will fill about two dozen small sandwiches.
- Holding and servingAssemble whole, then trim crusts and cut into triangles or fingers just before serving. Cover with a barely damp towel and keep chilled; the sooner they are served the better, as the bread stales at the cut edges.
Sandwich books proliferated in America between about 1900 and 1920, when the afternoon tea table and the ladies' luncheon created demand for something small, sweet and portable that was not cake. Apple butter itself is far older, a method made by boiling cider down with apples for hours in a copper kettle, often as a communal autumn task, until the mixture was concentrated enough that its sugar and acidity would keep the preserve without sealing. Apple butter was widely put up in jars as a pantry staple, and the candied orange peel scattered over it is the recipe's small gesture toward luxury: used a teaspoon at a time.