Ham & Swiss Twist Sandwiches: Savory Spiral Lunch Rolls

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My oven’s fixed.

Can you tell?

I’m going to brag a little about how it got fixed, but first let’s rewind to last Friday. It was a perfect fall day: the boys had declared the day computer- and game-free, the weather was crisp, and I was busy cooking down apples and canning a giant batch of applesauce.

We had friends over—one mom and her four little ones. The kids were playing outside in a light mist, chasing leaves and working up appetites. We were building toward a pizza-and-movie night with warm homemade slices and a cozy Wallace & Gromit film.

The kids kept trudging into the kitchen asking when pizza would be ready. I kept telling them I was waiting for the dough to rise and needed to finish the applesauce. With the applesauce done and the dough perfectly risen, I hit the oven preheat, bumped it to 475°F and left to assemble other ingredients. That assembly took about half an hour thanks to countless interruptions.

When I returned I saw the oven display still read 100°F. My stomach dropped because I knew what that meant: a blown bake ignitor. I called the Evil Genius (my husband) down, he confirmed the diagnosis and said his bit of consolation, then went back to his lair. We improvised: I pan-fried rounds of dough, warmed a huge pot of ultra-cheesy dunking sauce, and served fried bread wedges with cheese to a den full of hungry kids. Crisis averted, sort of—bread wedges and dunking sauce are fine, but not quite the pizza everyone expected.

After our friends left and my son went off to a birthday hoping for food, I ordered another bake ignitor—only to find the price had nearly doubled since our last replacement. I kept looking and found forum advice saying many horizontal bake ignitors are interchangeable if you can splice wires. My husband’s specialty is precisely that, so I ordered a compatible part for under twenty dollars with expedited shipping. It arrived Tuesday, he fixed it over his lunch break, and our oven lived again. I felt proud of him and a little proud of myself too. Then I made these sandwiches.

What are they? Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches.

These were a favorite of ours for picnic lunches toward the end of farmers’ market season. Imagine soft, golden-brown, sesame-dusted bread wrapped around salty deli ham and nutty Swiss cheese. They travel well: prepare a tray a month ahead, wrap in foil and freeze, or refrigerate for a few days. Pack with a bottle of honey or horseradish mustard, a crisp apple and a thermos of hot cider for an idyllic picnic on a blanket under brilliant fall trees.

If you haven’t got a dead bake ignitor and a delayed replacement, bake a tray of these and get outside before the first snow takes the color from the leaves.

P.S. Two of the sandwiches were left un-twisted because two children are of the No-Swiss-cheese persuasion. Leaving those un-twisted made it easy to know which was which.

Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches

Rebecca Lindamood

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Make lunch exciting with these golden-brown sandwich twists stuffed with salty deli ham and nutty Swiss cheese. Pack in a lunch or picnic box along with a squeeze bottle of your favourite mustard, an apple and a thermos of hot cider for a delicious, filling and far-from-ordinary meal.

Ingredients

For the dough:

2
pounds
of soft white bread dough
This can be homemade, previously frozen and thawed dough, or purchased dough. The author prefers a braided semolina-style dough.

For the Filling:

24
very thin slices deli ham
Virginia-style baked or honey-baked work well.
12
slices
deli Swiss cheese

For the Topping:

1
egg
beaten with a fork
3
tablespoons
sesame seeds

Instructions

Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Cover 5 pieces with a tea towel.
Divide the 6th piece into two equal pieces and roll each into a 6–8 inch long rectangle.
Tear or cut the Swiss slices into strips. Arrange half the cheese strips along the long edge of one rectangle and the rest on the other rectangle.
Stack two slices of ham and roll into a tight tube. Place the ham roll on top of the cheese on one rectangle; repeat with two more slices and the other rectangle.
Wrap the dough around the ham and cheese, pinching ends and seams tightly to seal.
Squeeze the ends of the two tubes together and twist them around each other, pinching the opposite ends when you reach them.
Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough pieces.
Let the twists rise in a warm, draft-free place until puffy, about 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Remove the tea towel, brush twists with beaten egg and sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of sesame seeds on each.
Bake 18–24 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool on the tray for 10 minutes.
Serve warm, or cool on a wire rack before wrapping in foil or parchment to refrigerate or freeze.