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Sandwich (Cut candied cherries fine)
Cut candied cherries fine and moisten with a few drops of wine. Cut sponge cake in squares and cover with whipped cream that has been sweetened and flavored and chilled; on top of this sprinkle the candied cherries. Cover with another piece of the cake and serve at once.
A dessert "sandwich" of sponge cake, whipped cream and candied cherries — assembly rather than cooking, and the whole thing hinges on doing it at the last minute.
- Serve at once means itWhipped cream soaks into sponge within minutes and the top slice slides off. Assemble on the plates, immediately before they go to the table; anything held even ten minutes becomes a trifle.
- The cakeA plain sponge, day-old and firm, cuts into clean squares. Fresh, warm sponge tears under the knife. Squares of about 2 to 2 1/2 inches work well; cut the pieces in matching pairs so the top sits flat on the bottom, as the recipe's "another piece of the cake" implies.
- Candied cherriesWhat the recipe most likely means is a whole glace cherry, dense and very sweet, rather than the cocktail maraschino cherry, which is packed in syrup and will weep. Buy glace or candied cherries and chop them to a rough mince.
- "A few drops of wine"Enough to soften the chopped fruit and loosen its sugar, not to make it wet — roughly a teaspoon to a half-cup of cherries. Sherry, Madeira or a sweet Marsala all suit; brandy or kirsch works if you want the cherry flavour sharpened.
- Sweetened and flavoredUnspecified, as was normal then. Figure a tablespoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of vanilla per cup of heavy cream. Whip to soft-to-medium peaks — stiff cream is hard to spread on sponge without tearing it.
- ChilledThe instruction to chill the cream is doing real work: cold cream holds its structure against the cake far longer than cream whipped and left at room temperature. Chill the bowl and beater too.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. As a working estimate, a cup of cream whips to about two cups, enough for roughly eight sandwiches of this size, with about a quarter-cup of chopped cherries.
Sandwich books proliferated in America around the turn of the twentieth century, driven by the afternoon tea, the card party and the ladies' luncheon -- occasions that wanted something handheld and slightly ornamental. The category stretched well past bread, to sweet sandwiches built on sponge cake, macaroons and wafers, where "sandwich" means only that one thing is layered between two others. Candied cherries suited such a book, being shelf-stable and brightly coloured. The result sits somewhere between a shortcake and a trifle, and the closing instruction -- serve at once -- is the honest admission of a dish that has no keeping qualities at all.