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Apple Mange
Reduce to a pulp a dozen fine apples, and sweeten and flavour according to taste. When quite cold, pour it into a glass dish, and cover it with whipped cream, which will be much firmer if made the day before it is wanted. Time to simmer the apples, forty minutes. Sufficient for four or five persons. Probable cost, 2s. 3d., with a pint of cream.
A cold apple purée under a cap of whipped cream, given in Cassell's with almost no quantities beyond the fruit and the pint of cream. The two things worth fixing are the apples and the moisture.
- What "a dozen fine apples" meansAssume cooking apples of roughly 5-6 oz each, so about 4 to 4 1/2 lb whole, or roughly 3 to 3 1/2 lb peeled and cored. Bramley, or any variety that collapses to a fluff, gives the texture intended; a firm eating apple will stay in shreds.
- Simmer with very little liquidForty minutes is right for a heavy pan over a low flame, but the pulp must end up thick enough to hold a spoon upright, or the cream will sink into it. Two or three tablespoons of water to start is enough, and the lid comes off for the last ten minutes to drive off steam.
- Sweetening and flavourFor this quantity, 4 to 6 oz (1/2 to 3/4 cup) sugar suits most cooking apples; add it after the fruit has broken down so the pieces soften properly. Period flavourings for an apple pulp were lemon zest and juice, cinnamon, clove, or a spoonful of brandy.
- "Quite cold" is not a formalityWarm purée melts whipped cream on contact. Chill the pulp thoroughly in the glass dish, several hours or overnight, before the cream goes on.
- A pint of creamAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 US cups; it will roughly double in volume whipped, which is far more than four or five people need over this much apple. Half that is ample unless you want the deep drift the book implies.
- Whipping it the day beforeThe reason the book gives for extra firmness is not clear, though it may relate to cream that was unpasteurised and thickened on standing. Modern whipping cream holds best whipped a few hours ahead to soft-to-medium peaks, refrigerated, and re-whisked briefly; if it must sit overnight, whip in a teaspoon of sugar and drain any liquid that separates.
- Yield and costServes four or five as written. The 2s. 3d. is the Victorian retail estimate and is only useful as a signal that the cream, not the apples, was the expense.
The name appears to be a shortening of blancmange, which by the later nineteenth century had loosened from its medieval meaning of a white almond-and-capon dish to cover almost any cold moulded or dished sweet; "apple mange" belongs to the same family as apple snow and apple fool, all of them ways of dressing up stewed fruit with cream or beaten egg white. The point that matters in practice is that a fruit pulp must be reduced far enough, and chilled far enough, to carry cream without weeping.