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Apple Dumplings
Pare and core as many apples as you wish and enclose them in puff paste, after putting half a clove and a little lemonpeel, and a trifle of mace, into the hole made by taking out the core. Wrap in bits of linen, or put into a net, and boil an hour. Before serving cut out a plug of the paste, put a teaspoonful of sugar and a little butter in- Strew powdered sugar over all and serve with sauce. side and replace the plug.
XVI. A Hen's Nest, and the Sauce.
TAKE half a dozen eggs, make a hole at one end and empty the shells, fill them with blanc-mange; when stiff and cold take off the shells; pare lemon-rind very thin, boil in water until tender, then cut in thin strips to resemble straw, and preserve in sugar; fill a deep dish half full of jelly or cold custard, put the eggs in and lay the straws, nest-like, around them. To make sauce for the pudding, take one cupful of butter, one cupful of sugar, yolk of one egg; beat together and stir in one cup of boiling water. Let it come to a boil, and when ready for use, flavor to taste. A nice dish to go with this is made by filling coffee-cups loosely with strawberries, and pouring over them Graham flour mush, or instead, thicken sweet boiling milk to a consistency which is thin enough to fill the interstices between the berries, and yet thick enough to be firm when cool. Turn out and serve up with cream and sugar.
XVII. Fruit Puddings.
MAKE a crust of Graham flour, sour cream, soda, and a pinch of salt. Pass the flour through a coarse sieve, so as to relieve it of the coarser bits of bran. For a family of six persons line a quart basin with the crust, a quarter of an inch thick. Fill the basin thus lined, with fruit-plums or peaches are best. Let the fruit be of the choicest variety. Cover the whole with a rather thick crust, and steam until the crust is thoroughly cooked. Serve with white sugar and thick, sweet cream. has been called Queen of puddings, and can be eaten with a comparatively clear conscience.
This
A boiled dumpling of the old school: whole apples cased in pastry, tied in cloth and simmered rather than baked. The method works, but a few details are assumed rather than stated.
- The hinge: seal and tie tightlyWrap each dumpling in a well-floured square of linen or cloth, gather it and tie it firmly with string just above the fruit, leaving a little slack for expansion; the floured cloth is what keeps the paste from waterlogging. (The recipe also allows a net.) A loose tie gives you apple soup.
- Puff paste is not the best choiceBoiled or steamed puff paste cannot laminate; it comes out pale and slack. A suet crust or a plain short crust, rolled fairly thin, will hold up better.
- ApplesUse a firm cooking apple that holds shape rather than collapsing, and choose fruit of even size so they cook at the same rate. Medium apples, pared and cored as directed but left whole, take roughly the stated hour at a bare simmer.
- Half a cloveA whole clove in a single apple is assertive, and the original calls for only half. Snap one in two and use the bud end, or substitute a pinch of ground clove. Mace is the outer coat of nutmeg; grated nutmeg is a close stand-in.
- Steam instead, if you preferA tied dumpling set in a steamer over simmering water for an hour gives the same result with less risk of a leaking cloth, and the paste stays drier.
- The plug and the fillingAfter boiling, cut a small disc out of the top crust, drop in the sugar and butter so it melts into the hot apple, replace the disc, then dust with powdered sugar. Do this at the table if you can, while it is still hot.
- SauceNo sauce is specified here. A hard sauce of creamed butter and sugar, or a thin custard, is the period-appropriate accompaniment.
Boiled dumplings tied in cloth suited kitchens that had a reliable fire but an unreliable oven, and they long outlived that necessity. Apple dumplings were a fixture of English and American home cooking well before this book appeared. The clove, mace and lemon peel tucked into the cored center can plausibly be read as reflecting an older habit of spicing fruit with whole spices rather than a stirred filling, though that is an interpretation rather than a documented survival.