Apple Compote
Pare the apples, cut the core out, leaving them whole. Make a syrup, allowing three-fourths pound of sugar to a pound of fruit; when it comes to a boil put in the fruit and let cook until clear but remains whole. Remove the fruit to a glass bowl, and dissolve oncthird of a box of gelatine in a half tea-cup of hot water, and stir briskly into the syrup, first taking off the fire. Then strain it over the apples, and set in a cool place to cool. When cold heap whipped cream over it. Some add sliced lemons to the syrup, and serve with a slice of the lemon on each apple. -Mrs. A. H. Rhea, Nashville, Tenn.
A poached-apple dessert set in its own lightly jellied syrup. The two things that decide whether it works are the apple variety and keeping the syrup at a bare simmer so the fruit stays whole.
- Apple choiceYou need a variety that holds its shape: Braeburn, Golden Delicious, Gala or a firm russet. McIntosh and most cooking apples collapse into sauce long before the flesh turns clear.
- The syrup ratioThree-fourths pound sugar to a pound of fruit is by weight, roughly 1⅔ cups sugar per pound of apples. Add water only to a depth that covers the fruit, about 1½ cups per pound, and dissolve the sugar before the pan comes to a boil.
- Poach, do not boilOnce the apples go in, hold the syrup at a lazy simmer and turn them occasionally, or baste. A rolling boil splits whole pared apples. Twenty to thirty minutes is usual; the flesh should look translucent and a skewer should pass through with slight resistance.
- A box of gelatinePeriod boxes were not standardised, and are usually reckoned at somewhere between a half ounce and an ounce, so one-third of a box works out at roughly a quarter to a third of an ounce -- about one modern ¼-ounce envelope. That sets 2 to 3 cups of syrup to a soft, spoonable jelly rather than a firm mould.
- Bloom it in cold waterModern powdered gelatine is best sprinkled over a half cup of cold water and left five minutes to swell, then stirred into the hot syrup off the heat. Stirred straight into hot water, as written, it is apt to clump.
- Off the fire means off the fireGelatine loses setting strength if boiled after it is added. Pull the pan aside, stir until fully clear, then strain over the fruit.
- Reducing the syrupAfter the apples come out you will often have more syrup than you want, and it will be thin. Boil it down by a third before adding the gelatine for better flavour and a cleaner set.
- Chilling and yield'A cool place' would now be the refrigerator: three to four hours for a soft set. The recipe gives no quantity of apples; six medium ones will serve six, with the whipped cream added only at the table so it does not weep into the jelly.
- The lemon variationSliced lemon simmered in the syrup keeps the sugar from tasting flat. Use thin slices of a well-scrubbed lemon and lift them out before straining if you do not want the pith bitterness.
Compote in the French sense means fruit cooked whole or in pieces in sugar syrup, as distinct from a marmalade or sauce where the fruit is broken down; the word shares a root with English "compost," both from Latin composita, something put together. What marks this version as late-Victorian American is the gelatine: Buckeye Cookery was compiled in 1877 and revised through the 1880s, decades when boxed sheet and shred gelatine was already on sale, having been available from the mid-century, and cooks began jellying things that earlier generations would simply have served in their syrup; the pre-measured granulated gelatine in packets that later became standard dates only from about 1890. The contribution from a Nashville subscriber is typical of the book's presentation: contributed recipes are printed with the donor's name and town, which is why a single chapter can jump from plain Midwestern boiled fruit to a dessert built to be brought to table under a heap of whipped cream.