Fruit Sandwich
Spread thin slices of white bread with chocolate cream butter, on this place a layer of fresh fruit such as bananas, strawberries, or raspberries; cover with another slice, and garnish top with a sugared berry.
A tea sandwich rather than a dessert course, and it depends almost entirely on the spread and on being assembled at the last minute.
- Chocolate cream butterA compound butter: softened butter creamed with powdered sugar and grated or melted chocolate, sometimes loosened with a spoonful of cream. Quantities are not given here, and the exact proportions would have to be taken from wherever the book sets that butter out. It must be soft enough to spread without tearing the bread but not warm enough to soak in.
- The breadA close-crumbed white sandwich loaf, sliced thin; the recipe gives no thickness. It says nothing about trimming crusts, though if they are trimmed, doing it after filling keeps the edges square. Day-old bread slices more cleanly than fresh.
- Fruit preparationBananas should be sliced thin lengthwise or in coins and used immediately, as they brown within minutes. Strawberries want hulling and slicing; raspberries go in whole. Blot any washed fruit dry, or the juice will bleed through the crumb.
- Assemble to orderThis is the hinge. Made much ahead, the sandwich goes soggy and the fruit weeps. A fatty spread taken edge to edge acts as a partial moisture barrier, though the recipe gives no reason for choosing chocolate butter over plain.
- The sugared berryA whole berry rolled in sugar while still slightly damp, set on top. It may not sit securely on a smooth slice; a cocktail pick, or a dab of the butter to press it into, will hold it.
- Yield and servingFigure two slices of bread per sandwich, cut into two triangles or three fingers. A loaf gives roughly ten to twelve sandwiches, enough for a tea table of six to eight. Serve cold but not chilled hard.
Sweet sandwiches of this kind belong to the American afternoon tea and card-party table of the early 1900s, when the sandwich had expanded well past cold meat into a whole genre of thin-bread confections served on the same plate as the savoury ones. Sandwich books of the period collected many such variations, and flavoured compound butters were a common way of getting richness into a sandwich without a custard or a cooked filling that would need a kitchen at hand. Fresh strawberries and raspberries were strictly seasonal in period, and bananas were the reliable year-round option, which is likely why they head the list; the sugared berry on top is the sort of small garnish that marked a sandwich as company food rather than lunch.