Son's 16th bday party today, made a giant sandwich..

[Cooking4to]

OK, so as you guys know I LOVE making breads, well when I asked my son wha he wanted me to make for his bday party he said "Sandwiches, nothing crazy", so of course I had to make him something special he is 16 once, lol...

So we were expecting 50-60 people, I made 100 wraps,vegi {fresh moz, tomato, cuke, basil}, tuna, seafood, and chicken salad {made it all of course}, and then the sandwich....

I did 18"s of turkey breast, 18"s of buffalo chicken, 18"s of pastrami, 18"s of roast beef, and 18"s of BLT.

I made the roast beef, but I bought full boars head packages for the others, I went to the boars head warehouse {supplier is a friend of mine} friday, bought a full oven gold, full pastrami, and full buffalo chicken breast. Then I grabbed 8 lbs of bacon at the rest. depot and belgioso full log...

The hardest part was slicing everything, I have the commercial slicer right in the kitchen now {used to be with my butcher stuff}. I made the breads in 2 ovens, I cooked them on boards from one side of the oven to the other, then cut the center heels off and put them together. The braids were pretty big 15oz's each strand so each loaf was almost 3 lbs of dough, I did 8 of them, so made like 25lbs of dough, lol...

Anyway everything came good, people loved the sandwich, ther eis literally only like 4 inches left to it, and I never had a party where so many people said they over ate when they were leaving, lol that sandwich was addicting, I didn't have one bite, lol so wouldn't know..

I did the bread pretty basic besides the size of it, {many batches} 9cups flour {4ap and 5 bf}, 3 tbl conditioner, 3 tbl yeast, 4 tbls sugar, 2 tbl salt, and 1/2 cup melted butter {water ended up around 3 1/2 cups..} bread was super tasty, moist, sweet, and cooked very well {I did a water/egg wash}. I didn't eat any sandwich but mad emy self a pretty big roast beef sandwich with one of the heels I cut off, lol...

I did simple lettuce and tomato, had mayo, mustard, and dressings all on the sides so anyone who wanted them could add it.

For cutting I did down the center and then between the picks which was about a 8oz sandwich, lol... Total weight was about 60lbs!!!!

Well here is a nice pick of the monster...

Wee had so much food, my entire dining room table was covered with wraps, salads, etc, I put the sandwich right on the kitchen counter, lol and served it from there... It stayed together so go, I was worried BUT this thing was rock solid, super easy to eat, super foundation... I did lettuce first, then meat {2 inches thick, folded, and stacked} then tomato and then cheese, I thought about this way too much, lol figured no meat or tomato touching bread....

 

[Cheryl J]

That is definitely a huge sandwich.

 

[Dawgluver]

Wouldn't mind a slice of that, looks delicious!

 

[Cheryl J]

Meant to say earlier, happy 16th birthday to your son.

 

[jennyema]

That's your kitchen counter?

 

[Cheryl J]

Big one, huh?

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...people loved the sandwich, ther eis literally only like 4 inches left to it,...I didn't have one bite, lol so wouldn't know...

What? They left you a 4 inch piece. Better get on it before one of the boys does.

BTW, Happy Birthday to your son. 16? Hide the car keys.

 

[Blackitty]

I am so impressed. Looks fantastic!

 

[Cooking4to]

Thank you guys, and I will extend the b-day wishes to my son. He has a bit to go before he drives, but he did get his car yesterday {well his truck, we gave him a new Toyota Tacoma}. But here you get your permit then restricted license {around 17}, actual license at 18. He is still excited, his mother??? Not so much, she was a bit emotional last night, because its going by too fast, it seems like yesterday they were waddling around our old place and small enough for us to just pick them up and hug them. Wow do I miss that, I still hug them, but when they were babies they hugged back, lol. I have noticed my wife is changing, she is getting clingy, lol, even when we were in Italy, they want to run off and chase the girls around, meet people, see things kids want to see {beaches, malls, etc} and my wife is dragging them to museums and farmers markets, lol...

That's your kitchen counter?

Yah thats my kitchen counter, I don't have any pics of the entire kitchen {I will have to take some}, but I have some of certain parts..

it wraps around back towards the kitchen sink {there are 3 undermounted sinks in the kitchen, a 2 bay dish sink, a small hand sink, and a trough sink {awesome sink for parties, we fill it with ice and water then put the wine and beer bottles in there}. So there are 5 faucets, lol one at each sink, then a hot water tap {comes out hot enough to make tea} and a the pot filler at the stove...
Then it drops back towards one of the porches through a sliding door that where the trough sink is...

When building it there was so much granite, we have another wall with a cook book type pantry, a revolving pantry, wall ovens, built in garbage compactor, we tried to think of everything, EXCEPT we didn't, lol My next house I am going to do a real commercial kitchen, start to finish, ss tables, shelves and tall cabinets for storage, blodget style oven, 30 qt hobart, etc... And I wont incorporate it into the house as living space, it will have commercial style tiles double swinging doors and not be somewhere everyone sits when we entertain. We had 50+ people over yesterday and a lot of people were in the kitchen, I hate that, its how our house was built, but in my next house I am going to do larger and more parlors, wee have 3 parlors now, but they aren't as entertaining friendly as they could be, I am thinking, a large bar, couches around the walls, chairs, plenty of seating and open to the rest of the house with lofts {I love lofts}.

I will take some more pics of the kitchen, I looked I can't believe I never posted more pics on here of it...

 

[bakechef]

That's an impressive sandwich! Not only was it impressive to look at, but being homemade bread had to make it extra awesome!

 

[Mad Cook]

That's an impressive sandwich! Not only was it impressive to look at, but being homemade bread had to make it extra awesome!

I can't imagine how it fitted into the oven!

 

[Cooking4to]

I can't imagine how it fitted into the oven!

It was cooked in sections, thats why I did a triple braid its the easiest match up and make look seamless, carefully measured each of the 3 rolls that went into each braid. Then I made sure they all started exactly the same length and there were exactly the same amount of cross overs in each braid. That makes matching them up a lot easier.

In the past I have tried making striaght loaves into a large sandwhich and you always end up with variations and they don't match up any where near perfect. The braids look perfect, I also swap them around in the ovens as they cook to make sure their bottoms and tops are all uniform...

Not an easy task to do something like this but it was worth it, my guests are still talking about it, lol