Cream Sandwich
Cream four ounces of butter, add gradually four ounces of brown sugar, four ounces of fine flour, four eggs one by one, a squeeze of lemon juice or a tablespoonful of rose water, and lastly a teaspoonful of baking powder. When thoroughly mixed, bake in shallow tins. Whip up till perfectly thick a quarter of a pint of cream, spread this on half the strips and cover with the other sandwich-fashion. Ice these sandwiches over with chocolate icing.
An Edwardian sweet "sandwich" — a thin sponge baked in a shallow tin, cut into strips, filled with whipped cream and glazed. The measurements are by weight and the vessels are British.
- Weights, not cupsFour ounces each of butter, brown sugar and flour is 115 g each — a classic equal-weight sponge. Weigh rather than convert; 4 oz of sifted flour is closer to a scant cup than a level one.
- The eggsEggs of the period were not standardised and were generally smaller than today's large eggs, so four modern large eggs may slacken a 4 oz flour batter; three large eggs are a safer starting point.
- A quarter of a pint of creamIn a British book that is 5 fl oz, or about 2/3 cup — it whips up to roughly 1 1/4 cups. Use heavy or whipping cream; single cream will not thicken.
- Fine flourPlain (all-purpose) flour, sifted. With the teaspoonful of baking powder added last, do not beat after it goes in — fold just until no streaks remain.
- Oven and tinShallow tins means a jelly-roll or quarter-sheet pan, lined. Bake at 350–375°F for 12–18 minutes, until the top springs back; a thin sponge overbakes quickly and then cracks when the cream is spread.
- Cool completely before fillingThe hinge of the recipe. Whipped cream collapses into warm sponge, and chocolate icing poured over a cream-filled sandwich that has not been chilled will slide off. Cool the cake, cut the strips, fill, chill briefly, then ice.
- Rose waterA tablespoonful of modern rose water is assertive, and commercial distillates vary widely in strength. Start with two teaspoons, or use the lemon juice alternative.
- The icingNo recipe is given for it; a plain glace icing of confectioners' sugar, cocoa or melted chocolate and a little hot water, thin enough to pour and set firm, will serve.
- Yield and keepingA quarter-sheet of sponge cut into fingers gives about a dozen sandwiches. Cream-filled, they are a same-day item and must be refrigerated.
By the time this book appeared, "sandwich" in British baking had drifted well past bread and meat: any two layers with something spread between them qualified. The base here is a rich creamed butter cake, lightened with the chemical baking powder that had become a fixture of the domestic pantry in the later nineteenth century. The choice offered between lemon juice and rose water is a small piece of dating in itself: rose water was the older, once-dominant flavouring of English cakes and puddings, gradually displaced by citrus and vanilla, and by 1900 it survives in recipes like this as an alternative rather than the default. Cutting the sheet into fingers and glazing them in chocolate points at the tea table and the cake stand, where a tray of uniform iced strips was easier to serve than a whole cake.