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Apple Batter Pudding
Put into a bowl half a pound of flour and a little salt, and stir very gradually into it half a pint of milk. Beat it until quite smooth, then add three eggs. Well butter a pie-dish, and pour about half the batter into it. Place it in a quick oven, and bake it until quite firm. Nearly fill the dish with apples, pared, cored, and sliced, and slightly stewed with a little sugar, and lemon-rind, or any other flavouring. Pour the rest of the batter in, and replace in the oven. Time to bake, one hour and a half. Sufficient for six persons. Probable cost, 1s.
A batter pudding in the Yorkshire mould, baked in two stages so the base sets before the fruit goes in. The instructions are sound; the units and the total time need translating.
- The hinge: set the base firstThe half-batter poured in and baked until firm is what keeps the apples from sinking into raw batter. Do not shortcut it — give it 12 to 15 minutes until the surface is dry and set before the fruit goes in.
- Half a pound of flourAbout 1 3/4 cups of plain flour, weighed rather than scooped if you have a scale.
- Half a pint of milkThis is an imperial pint, so 10 fl oz — a scant 1 1/4 cups. Combined with three eggs it gives a thick, pourable batter rather than a thin one. Stirring the milk in gradually, as written, is the whole method for a lump-free batter.
- EggsVictorian eggs ran smaller than today's large. Three modern large eggs are fine; if your batter looks loose, hold back a spoonful or two of milk.
- "A quick oven"Roughly 400 to 425F. The recipe names only the one heat; if the top colours before the centre sets, dropping to about 375F after the apples and remaining batter go in is a modern adjustment, not part of the original.
- Pie-dishNo pastry is involved. A pie-dish here is an oval or round earthenware baking dish, deep enough to take half the batter, a filling of apples and then the remainder; something in the region of 9 to 10 inches across and at least 2 inches deep.
- The timeAn hour and a half total is longer than needed in a modern oven. Expect 15 minutes for the base and 35 to 45 minutes after the fruit and second pouring, until the batter is puffed, browned and firm to the centre.
- ApplesUse a tart cooking apple. Bramley breaks down to a purée; Granny Smith is tart but holds its shape more. Stew them only lightly, as written; fully cooked apples release more liquid into the batter.
- ServingSix portions, best eaten hot from the dish with cream or a plain custard. It sinks and toughens as it cools.
Batter puddings were the workhorse sweet of the nineteenth-century English kitchen: flour, milk and eggs, the same mixture that went under the roasting joint as Yorkshire pudding, redirected into a buttered dish with whatever fruit was cheap. Apples made it a standing autumn and winter dish, and the two-stage baking here is the practical answer to the problem every cook with fruit and batter faces — that the fruit sinks. The French clafoutis works from the same logic with a softer, more custardy batter, though there is no need to claim descent in either direction; the technique is obvious enough to have been arrived at repeatedly. The "probable cost, 1s." appended to the recipe is characteristic of Cassell's, which was written for households running on a budget and expected the cook to be able to price a dish before making it; the same entry format gives cost and number of servings for everything from a savoury pie to a trifle.