Bread for sandwiches should be of fine even grain and twenty-four hours old, except for rolled sandwiches, then it must be moist enough to be pliable.

Sometimes it is well to wrap the loaves to be used for sandwiches in damp cloths for three or four hours before preparing.

Dip the knife into hot water for slicing moist bread.

Thin, fresh crisped crackers or wafers are nice for sandwiches when they are to be served right away, so they will not lose their crispness. Wafers of pastry are suitable for some sandwiches.

Small round tins, like baking powder cans, are nice to bake bread in for sandwiches. Be careful not to bake it too hard.

Do not cut the crust from the bread as a rule; it is the sweetest and most wholesome part of the bread and the slices look so “naked” without it.

Unless the loaf is of the regular sandwich style, cut it in two in the middle, spread each cut surface, if butter is to be used, and cut off a thin slice from each half loaf. Cover one slice with the sandwich filling and lay the other on top of that, pressing well together. Cut into triangles, squares or strips. Continue cutting slices from each half loaf, then they will fit.

Cream (not melt) the butter before spreading; it may have chopped parsley, onion or lemon juice or other flavorings worked into it.

For rolled sandwiches, the crust will have to be cut off unless it is very pliable. Cut slices thin, spread with the desired filling and roll as close as possible. If they should not stay together well, fasten with sharp pointed Japanese toothpicks. They may be tied with baby ribbon. Steam figs, seeded raisins and dates and grind in food cutter for sweet sandwiches.

Scrambled eggs are better in sandwiches than hard boiled. Hard boiled eggs may be rubbed to a paste in a mortar, with butter and salt.

When mayonnaise dressing is used, put sandwiches together just before serving.

Onion sandwiches, when carried, must be packed in a close covered box by themselves.

To keep moist, cover plate with lettuce leaves, lay sandwiches on and cover with dampened lettuce leaves. Or, cover plate of sandwiches with a towel wrung out of cold water and set in cool place. Or, wrap sandwiches in a damp napkin or waxed paper and place in close covered tin box or stone jar and set in cool place. It is better to have everything ready and put the sandwiches together just before serving.

Garnishing—Sandwiches are much more attractive if a few sprays of parsley are placed around the edges before the second slice of bread is laid on. Sprigs of celery or small spinach leaves may be used, or a narrow strip of lettuce may be laid around the edges, so that it will look like a dainty ruffle of green.

Sweet sandwiches may be served with cereal coffee, tea-hygiene, egg drinks or egg creams.

Plates of sandwiches may be garnished with chervil, parsley, lettuce, celery or carrot tops, ferns, leaves or flowers.

FILLINGS FOR SANDWICHES

These are daintily arranged bits of bread cut into rounds, ovals or any fancy shape; sometimes toasted on one side; served most suitably at a luncheon or supper and eaten with a fork. Crackers are more suitable for some coverings. Much taste may be displayed in the arrangement of canapes.

Mushroom Canapes

Toast rounds of bread on one side, lay toasted side down on individual plates and cover the other side with chopped mushrooms cooked in a small quantity of water with butter, and lay one small broiled mushroom (or one that has been cooked the same as the chopped), cup side up, in the center. Garnish with lettuce, chervil, spinach or parsley.

Trumese and Egg Canape

Moisten hashed trumese with a little rich cream or brown sauce. Toast diamonds of bread on one side and dip the other side in melted butter. Scramble eggs soft and fine and place in center of toast, diamond shape, then cover the remainder of the toast with the trumese, making a diamond shaped border of it. Lay a piece of green string bean cut in diamond shape in the center; set in the oven a moment, serve on individual plates.

Indian Canapes

Mince trumese salad entrÉe fine and rub hard boiled yolks of eggs with some of the dressing; spread on untoasted side of strips of bread or thin wafers. Garnish plate with slices of lemon and tomato sprinkled with chopped parsley or with a leaf of parsley or spinach on each.

Russian Canapes

Drain Chili sauce and rub through strainer, place pulp in center of large wafer, surround with salted, riced yolk of hard boiled egg, finishing with a wreath of the riced white of egg sprinkled with chopped parsley. A leaf of green may be laid in the center of the Chili sauce. Toasted bread may be used.

Cottage Cheese Canapes

Cover crackers or circles of toast with creamy cottage cheese. Make a border on cheese of small leaves of parsley and place a star or other shape of boiled red beet or carrot in the center. Serve with lettuce salad.

Ripe olives may be combined with cheese for canapes. Pastry wafers may be used.

An oxeye daisy, p.31, may be placed in center of canape, in the wreath of parsley.

Sweet canapes may be prepared in great variety. The sandwich filling of cocoanut moistened with cream, with dates, figs or raisins would be very pretty if wafer were spread with the sweet pulp, then covered with cocoanut decorated with citron or angelica and candied cherries in fancy shapes or chopped. Pastry wafers would be especially suitable for some of the sweet canapes.

Sandwich À la Salade

Roll strips of trumese salad entrÉe in crisp lettuce leaves, fasten with Japanese toothpicks and serve on crackers or strips of zwieback or with crescent sandwiches of bread and butter; or the salad without the toothpick may be snugly rolled in a bread and butter or bread and oil sandwich.

Sister Starr’s Tomato Sandwich

Chop together scrambled egg, oil and drained tomato (raw or canned), not forgetting the salt, add cracker crumbs to make of the right consistency and serve between crackers or slices of bread.

Variegated Sandwiches

Make three equal sized loaves of universal crust, one tinted a delicate pink with fruit color, one left white, and the third made of part graham flour with a little dark brown flour in the sponge.

When old enough, cut in slices, butter, pack together—brown, pink and white—and set in refrigerator with weight on top.

To serve, cut in slices, then in any desired shape.

English Bread and Butter Sandwiches

Spread butter on loaf and cut in just as thin slices as possible roll, fold, or place slices together.

? Trumese Sandwiches—non-starch

Broil thin slices of trumese and place between them, scrambled eggs, or fine sliced onions or celery; garnish.