mchorton’s blog

Last week I started experimenting with sandwiches that have crisp, fried bread on the inner face, while the outer face remains soft. I started down this line of experimentation because I had a bad experience with a sandwich with over-toasted bread. The dry, tough bread hurt the roof of my mouth while I ate it. I began to question why the outer surface of the bread needs to be crisp at all. Crunch is desirable, but why not put the crunch on the inside, and leave the outer surface of the bread soft? Of course, this idea has already been widely explored in burgers with toasted buns, in which the inside surface is lightly toasted and the exterior remains soft. I do enjoy a nice panini with a fully toasted bread, but experimenting with a soft exterior sounded worthwhile.

Frying one side of my sourdough bread and using it as the interior worked out well. This thinking led me to an idea that sounds a little crazy – here it is. Let’s apply a thin coating of caramel to the inner bread surface. This caramel won’t be a soft, chewy caramel. It’s a thin, brittle caramel – think like the texture of holiday peanut brittle, but much, much thinner.

What should go on the interior of a sandwich like this? More exploration is needed, but my initial experiment involved heirloom tomato, burrata cheese, a little olive oil, and a little black pepper.

The results were incredible. The thin layer of caramel on the interior of the bread offered a very satisfying crunch. Yet somehow, the brittle caramel never stuck to my teeth, as is often an annoyance associated with brittle caramel. The soft bread and sandwich ingredients intermingling with the caramel helped prevent this sticking. The caramel flavor was strong in the sandwich. It might sound strange, but the caramel flavor was a nice complement to the soft, mild burrata and the juicy tomato.

So here it is: the receipe for the caramel cheese sandwich. The real innovation here is the application of brittle caramel to the interior. Innovation on the sandwich ingredients is encouraged.

Recipe

Ingredients:

Sandwich:

• 2 slices of sandwich bread
• 4 oz burrata cheese
• A dash of olive oil
• A sprinkle of pepper
• 1 heirloom tomato
• Salt
• Butter or Oil (dealer’s choice, as long as it you can brown bread in it. I used a refined olive oil suitable for high temperatures)

Caramel Brittle

• 1.5 tbsp butter
• ¼ cup sugar
• salt

Procedure:

You’ll want to make the caramel brittle last, because it hardens as it cools. It will be difficult to apply to the bread unless it’s still hot.

Preparing the sandwich:

1. Slice the tomato, and salt it to taste.
2. Slice the cheese into manageable pieces that you can put on a sandwich.
3. Heat a pan to roughly 350F, add oil, and fry one side of each slice of bread in the butter or oil

Preparing the caramel brittle:

1. Head ¼ cup sugar in a sauce pan until melted. Swirl the sugar around frequently to avoid burning.
2. Remove from head, and add 1.5 tbsp butter. Whisk vigorously until butter is melted. Add a sprinkle of salt (to taste).
3. Allow the caramel to cool just a little, until it is at a thick, spreadable consistency. Spread it onto the toasted side of the bread (as you would any other condiment).

Final Steps:

1. Place one slice of bread fried-and-carameled-side-up. Add the tomato slices, then burrata slices. Drizzle with olive oil and pepper.
2. Place the remaining slice of bread fried-side-down on the sandwich.

Photos:

To prove to my future self that this wasn’t some sort of fever dream, I took some photos of the journey. First, we have bread with caramel applied.

Next, we have the assembled sandwich (without the top slice of bread).

Finally, the finished product. You can see the thin layer of caramel brittle on the inner surface of the bottom slice of bread.

It was delicious. Don’t take my word for it – go make it.