Cider Sauce
Mix two table-spoons butter with an even table-spoon of flour; stir in half a pint of brown sugar, and half a gill of boiled cider; add a gill of boiling water, mix well, let it simmer a few moments; serve hot.
A pudding sauce of the plainest sort: a butter-flour roux, sugar, and boiled cider let down with water. The whole thing takes five minutes, and the only real variable is the boiled cider.
- Boiled cider is the hingeThis is sweet cider reduced by boiling to roughly a seventh of its volume, a thick tart syrup still sold by New England producers. Ordinary cider or cider vinegar will not stand in; without the reduction the sauce is thin and merely sour.
- Gills and half-pintsA gill is 1/2 cup, so half a gill of boiled cider is 1/4 cup and a gill of boiling water is 1/2 cup. Half a pint of brown sugar is measured by volume, about 1 cup packed.
- Butter and flour proportionTwo tablespoons butter to one level tablespoon flour makes a loose roux that thickens the sauce only slightly. Expect a pourable syrup, not a gravy; it sets up further as it cools.
- Order of workThe original only says to mix the butter and flour, then to simmer the finished sauce briefly; some cooks prefer to cook the butter and flour together for a minute first, which can help take off any raw-flour taste.
- Simmer briefly"A few moments" means just long enough to dissolve the sugar and take the floury edge off, perhaps two minutes. Prolonged boiling with this much sugar drives it toward candy and it will turn grainy on standing.
- Yield and servingMakes about 1 1/4 cups, enough for six to eight servings. It is meant for steamed and boiled puddings, apple dumplings, gingerbread or baked apples, and should go to the table hot.
- If it separatesA sauce this rich in butter can break if held over direct heat. Keep it warm over hot water and whisk in a spoonful of boiling water if it looks oily.
Boiled cider was a common farmhouse product across the apple-growing North in the nineteenth century, made in autumn by cooking fresh sweet cider down in an open kettle until it kept without fermenting. It served as a sweetener, a pie liquid and the tart element in sauces like this one, and it belonged to a region where farms with a press often kept a jug of it in the cellar. Sweet sauces of butter, sugar, flour and a flavoring were a common accompaniment to the boiled and steamed puddings that closed a plain American dinner; similar formulas appear in the period's cookbooks with wine, lemon, vinegar or nutmeg in place of the cider.