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French Sweet Sandwiches
Roll puff paste into very thin layers, cut into strips, and bake until crisp. Take these, about one inch wide and three long, spread with whipped cream and a layer of jam, putting two together.
A three-line recipe that assumes you already know how puff paste behaves. The whole thing hinges on baking the strips dry and crisp, and on assembling them at the last possible moment.
- Puff pasteFrozen all-butter puff pastry stands in perfectly. "Very thin" is not defined in the original; something around 1/8 inch works — the strips should puff into flaky layers, not into thick pillows that crush when pressed together.
- Oven heatThe original gives none. A hot oven, around 425F, suits thin puff paste. Bake 12-15 minutes until deep golden and dry all the way through; pale pastry will soften within minutes of meeting the cream.
- Cut before bakingCut the strips to 1 x 3 inches while raw, on a floured board with a sharp knife pressed straight down rather than dragged, so the layers can rise cleanly. Trimming after baking shatters them.
- Whipped creamHeavy cream whipped to firm peaks, lightly sweetened. A soft whip will slide out under the weight of the top strip.
- The jamA thick preserve — apricot, raspberry, redcurrant — spreads without running. Loose or syrupy jam soaks the pastry. Warm, thin jam is worse still; use it cold.
- Assemble lastFilled strips soften quickly. Bake the strips ahead, keep them in a tin, and fill only when they are going to the table.
- YieldTwo strips make one sandwich, so a dozen baked strips give six. Count on two or three per person alongside coffee or tea.
The book is Adelaide Keen's With a Saucepan Over the Sea (1902), presented to American households as foreign cookery brought home. What is described is essentially a small mille-feuille or, in the English idiom of the day, a cream slice — puff paste strips sandwiched with cream and preserve. "Sandwich" in Victorian and Edwardian cookery books was used freely for any two pieces of anything with a filling between, sweet as often as savoury, which is why the name reads oddly now. Puff paste itself was a point of pride in the period, made by hand with repeated turns of butter into dough, and a cook who could turn out crisp thin layers was showing off cheaply: a few ounces of flour, butter, cream and jam produced something that looked like patisserie.