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Apple Dumplings
Shred as finely as possible from six to eight ounces of suet; mix with it a pinch of salt, one pound of flour, a small spoonful of baking-powder, and enough cold water to make it into a stiff paste. Use a fork in mixing. Roll it out, and line a well-buttered basin with it. Fill the basin with apples, pared, cored, and sliced; add a little sugar, one or two cloves, and a little water. Cover it with the paste, and pinch it all round. Tie it in a well-floured cloth, and boil for two hours and a half. As soon as it is turned out of the basin, cut a little hole in the top, or the steam will make the pastry heavy. Serve with sweet sauce. Sufficient for six persons. Probable cost, 1s.
Despite the title, this is a single large boiled suet pudding rather than individual dumplings. Nothing here is difficult, but the boiling method has fallen out of household use and a few details need translating.
- The hinge: keep the water boiling and topped upA basin pudding must sit in water that never stops simmering, with the level kept about two-thirds up the basin. If the pot goes off the boil or boils dry, the crust turns dense and greasy and the two and a half hours are wasted.
- Basin size and setupA pound of flour plus 6-8 oz suet makes a generous quantity of pastry, enough to line and lid a basin of roughly 2 to 3 pints (about 1.2 to 1.7 litres). Stand it on a trivet, an upturned saucer or a folded cloth so it is not in direct contact with the pan base.
- Cloth or foilThe floured cloth is tied over the basin rim with string, with a pleat across the top to allow expansion, and the corners knotted for a handle. Pleated baking parchment under foil, tied the same way, does the same job and is easier to lift out.
- SuetFresh beef suet from a butcher is what the book means; packet shredded suet, beef or vegetarian, works directly and needs no chopping. Frozen butter coarsely grated is a common substitute if you want neither.
- "A small spoonful of baking-powder"Read this as about 1 teaspoon. Suet crust relies mainly on the suet and steam for lightness, so more will not help.
- Apples and sugarRoughly 1.5 to 2 lb (700-900 g) of peeled, cored, sliced cooking apples will fill the basin, depending on its size; Bramleys collapse to a puree, while eating apples hold their shape. The "little sugar" is probably 2-3 oz (50-75 g), more with tart cookers. The recipe calls for one or two cloves, which are best fished out before serving.
- Handle the hot basin properlyLift it out with the cloth knot or with wide bands of folded towel, let it stand a minute, then invert onto a warm dish. Pierce the top at once as directed to let the trapped steam escape.
- Yield and sauceSix servings, as stated. "Sweet sauce" in a book of this period generally means a thin sweetened white sauce, a custard, or melted butter beaten with sugar; cream or plain custard serves the same purpose.
Boiled puddings in a cloth or basin were a mainstay of English domestic cookery from the seventeenth century onwards, and a pot already over the fire was cheaper to use than heating a bread oven for a pie. Suet crust, which needs no rubbing-in and tolerates rough handling, was a standard casing. The "probable cost" -- a shilling here, feeding six -- suggests a readership of households running to a budget. The gap between title and method is worth noting: "apple dumpling" more properly meant an apple wrapped whole in paste and boiled individually, and the name appears to have loosened over the nineteenth century to cover boiled apple-and-suet puddings more generally.