a day ago
Fresh-fruit ‘dessert sandwiches' aren't an abomination – they have a long and delicious history
Will dessert sandwiches be a summer smash or a double fault? M&S clearly thinks the former. Its new strawberry and 'creme' sandwich has just hit the shelves, inspired by the Japanese sweet 'sando', an inch (or more) thick creation that's been around for a century in Japan in both sweet and savoury iterations.
Sandos only appeared recently over here, in patisseries such as London's Hachi Bakery in hip-again Notting Hill. Perfectly square edged slabs with thin slices of pure white crustless bread encasing the broad bands of exquisitely arranged fruit – such as photogenic kiwi, orange segments, berries and peach – and cream, those ones are pure patisserie rather than packed lunch.
In principle, we should have no problem with the idea of a strawberry sandwich. Sweet things between slices of bread have a long and honourable history, from the jam sandwiches of children's birthday parties, through Nutella-filled lunchbox treats, to the illicit pleasure of a crunchy sugar sandwich – I recommend demerara sugar and a whisper of lemon zest for the best effect.
But fresh fruit is another matter, and a fraught one, as M&S knows well. A product developer once told me that they experimented with a banana sandwich some years ago, but it was pulled from the shelves before the stores even opened after turning a grim shade of brown as it oxidised. Not that it was the only episode.
Heather Morley, a Telegraph reader who worked for a supplier to M&S in the 1990s, writes in that 'at one point, we launched two sweet sandwiches: carrot-cake bread with cream-cheese filling, and chocolate bread with morello cherries and fresh whipped cream. They were absolutely delicious but technically very hard to make… They were discontinued after just a week or so.'
We all know that a sandwich filled with slices of just-about-ripe banana (arranged over a slather of peanut butter, ideally smooth) is best eaten within a minute of being created. But much fresh fruit carries other risks, such as being loaded with water which can quickly turn soggy, as anyone who's tried making tomato sandwiches will attest.
The addition of lemon juice to slow that browning would only make matters worse. The exception, and one I recommend, is unsalted butter, fresh raspberries and a dusting of caster sugar between slices of fresh white bloomer: a sort of uncooked raspberry jam.
In response to the new supermarket strawberry sandwich, readers have had some great ideas, such as cream cheese, walnuts and dates, which sounds delicious and avoids any soggy sagas. Simple bread with clotted cream and strawberries also gets votes, including mine.
Indeed, food writers have had plenty of fun over the years with combinations of sweet and savoury ingredients between bread, in baguettes, piled into wraps and on toast. Clare Thomson even constructed strawberry sandwiches with the thinly sliced berries layered on top of a mixture of lemon curd and mascarpone.
As any European knows, cheese works beautifully with fruit – so why shouldn't it do so beyond the cheeseboard? Who could resist a baguette stuffed with Roquefort, slim peach wedges and rocket, say, or one with ripe Brie, halved grapes and basil?
Dessert-style sandwiches take especially well to grilling, like the banana-based Elvis (featuring sliced banana, peanut butter and occasionally bacon, allegedly Presley's favourite), or Diana Henry's sumptuous gorgonzola, mozzarella, fig and honey toastie. And, talking of hot sandwiches, even Delia tried to convince us that deep-fried jam sandwiches were a desirable thing when she launched them on the menu at her restaurant Yellows Bar and Grill at Norwich football club. I wonder if they would be improved by a few slices of real strawberries…?
Any dessert sandwich created for high-street consumption has to contend with sitting in a chiller cabinet rather than going straight from bread board to plate. To counter this, normal sandwich engineering rules apply – specifically something to protect the bread from the dreaded soggy top-and-bottom. For a sweet filling this generally means a creamy concoction (although the aforementioned peanut butter offers the perfect base for banana).
Supermarket creations, should any follow M&S's strawberry number, must also be fresh – and I mean truly fresh. No fruit is going to last long, even bathed in a lusciously rich coating, without going slimy or mealy and depressing. It must be made today, sold today and scoffed today.
That said, there's been ingredient tweaking in the Red Diamond strawberry wedge to lengthen its shelf life: emulsifiers, 'natural flavouring' and palm fat all feature in the ingredients list. Not quite the wholesome cream tea I'm looking for. On the upside, the calorie count, at 290, is less than a muffin, and the inclusion of a bit of fresh fruit (even if it might not quite score one of your five a day) has to be a good thing.
Some of us will race to buy this new lunch fix, which has taken a middle route between Asian aesthetics and a British butty. After all, it can be eaten at a desk without dropping creme on your credentials. Others may even be inspired to recreate it at home, and I hope that they might be tempted to branch out further into the fruit field, trying tart kiwi, mango or even pineapple (a toastie containing torn slices of ham hock with grated gruyère and pineapple chunks is a Very Good Thing).
A summer of sweet sandwiches beckons – and in my book that's an absolute ace.
