Failure Sandwich: The Sad Tale of The Double Grilled Cheese Burger

written by: Cory Q

For those of you unfamiliar with SAH's current quest for the Best Bacon Cheeseburger, I strongly encourage you to check out this set of pictures to see the lengths he has gone to before he will be satisfied.

I believe the roots of this obsession are deep. Very deep. How deep? I'm not sure, but I can attest to the fact that they go back to at least January of 2005. That is the date of the ruined glory I am about to detail.

I like sandwiches. I am such a lover of sandwiches that I have the heady notion that I can invent my own unique concoction that will enrich the general palette of taste sensations. It worked once with the Cory Q Sandwich, so why wouldn't magic happen twice? This sandwichsmithing of mine briefly coincided with SAH's fetish and became a full blown experiment.

The idea was simple and wonderfully clear in my head. Here is logical argument that proceeded this experiment: 1) Hamburgers are tasty.
2) Hamburgers become more tasty when cheese is added.
3) Hamburgers become even more tasty when a second patty is added.
4) Therefore, more cheese and more overall sandwhichness equals more deliciousness.

Using this well crafted internal argument, I decided that perhaps if I was to take a grilled cheese sandwich and combine it with a double hamburger, that I might stumble into the tender grove of taste ecstasy.

How would one do this? It seemed simple enough in my head and I was able to give a proper cross sectional look at the construction to those I infected with this idea. From top to bottom, the construction of this mythical libation is bun, burger, bread, cheese, bread, burger, bun. See! A double hamburger with a grilled cheese right in the middle of it! Go ahead, take a minute to absorb its brilliance...

Well, I would give people a minute to behold the glory, but in a quick second everyone I mentioned this idea to said the same thing: Isn't that just a double cheese burger with more bread? I would reply, wounded and a little confused, that no, this was a special type of sandwich synergy being presented. This was clearly going to be a thing more wonderful than either meal separately. The universal response here was "I don't think that grilled cheese part will come through". Angrily I thought to myself that they would be sorry to scoff once I had prepared this ambrosia.

So, SAH, in his sporting way, came over to Fortress Q one evening with control samples to compare with what had now been dubbed the Double Grilled Cheese Burger. He brought over a double cheese burger from both Burger King and McDonald's to see how mine stacked up. For my part, I thought this was excessive. There would be no way the wonder I was about to unleash on the culinary world could be anything less than top of the heap.

Well, if you want to try to make this burger, you have to be ready. I had to fry up two hamburger patties, which I did on one stove burner, while on the burner next I made a grilled cheese sandwich. The hamburger patties were the pre-made frozen kind, though I don't recall the brand. Their quality was average, but that wasn't the issue. The grilled cheese was your standard Saturday lunch time affair: bread, a couple slices of American cheese, slathered with butter and grilled on both sides. What I learned from the actual 'cooking of the food' section of this trial was that it is harder than I thought to get the patties done at the same time as the grilled cheese. The grilled cheese was done early despite being started after I got the patties going. This might not have helped the awesomeness. I also didn't toast the bun or in any other way 'add value' to that girder of burgerdom.

The cooking went fine for one of my skill. The stove was a greasy mess, but nothing caught fire, so that was a victory. I put the first patty on the bottom bun, put the entire grilled cheese sandwich on top of that, the other patty on top of the grilled cheese, and then topped it off with a bun. Not only had I made the sandwich I had dreamed, I made twice the dishes for one sandwich.

Here is where the reality set in. This is a big sandwich. In fact, above is a picture to let you know just how much bread is involved. Note the King and Micky's doubles for scale next to this. It was also hard to cut. That much molten cheese in the middle means that the top and bottom half just want to slide apart when you pick it up. Also, the molten nature of the cheese meant that the middle of the sandwich was much hotter than everything else. The real nail in the coffin of this Hindenburg of Burgers was something that everyone but me had seen coming. The most important aspect of a grilled cheese sandwich that I hoped to bring forward with this creation was the crispiness of the toasted bread. Turns out that such a taste and texture is instantly lost amongst the grease and bun. Damn it.

SAH and I ate our halves of this experiment looking at each other with "Well, it could have been worse" expressions while Mrs. Q just shook her head in a "I told you so" way that I know all too well is the reward for my foolishness. This Double Grilled Cheese Burger was OK taste wise, but given the size and preparation harangue, not worth making again.

Sure, some might accuse me of embellishing this story to make my utter failure sound like a grand adventure. Some might call me a charlatan for thinking I could make better what is already grand, but I tell you, loyal reader, I regret nothing about this trial and will undoubtedly keep trying my hand and sandwichsmithing.

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