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Apple Mould
Pare, core, and slice two pounds of golden pippins. Put them into a saucepan with a pint of water, one pound of sugar, and one ounce of isinglass. Let all boil gently together until the apples are quite soft. Then beat them well, until quite smooth, with a few drops of Vanilla flavouring. Oil a mould, lay the apple smoothly into it, and let it stand in a cold place. Serve with whipped cream. Time to simmer, half an hour. Sufficient for five or six persons. Probable cost, 1s. 10d., exclusive of the cream.
A straightforward set fruit pudding whose only real obstacle is the isinglass. The rest is a matter of cooking the apples down hard enough that the mould turns out clean.
- IsinglassIsinglass is a collagen setting agent made from the swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish, sold in sheets or shreds. One ounce is roughly 28 g; substitute an equal weight of powdered gelatine, or about 14-16 sheets of leaf gelatine, and be prepared to use a slightly lighter hand if the set comes out rubbery.
- Golden pippinsA small, sharp, yellow dessert apple that has all but disappeared from commerce. Bramley, Granny Smith or any firm cooking apple works; two pounds is about 900 g, most likely of whole apples as bought.
- SugarA pound of sugar to two pounds of apples is very sweet by current taste. Half that will still set, since the gelatine and not the sugar does the work, though the mould will keep less well.
- Boiling the gelatineProlonged hard boiling weakens gelatine's setting power. Simmer the apples gently as directed, or hold the isinglass back and stir it into the hot, beaten pulp until dissolved for a more reliable set.
- "Beat them well"This means reducing the cooked fruit to a smooth puree. A stick blender does in seconds what a wooden spoon and a sieve were meant to do, and gives a cleaner-cut mould.
- Oiling the mouldUse a flavourless oil, wiped on thinly with paper. A wet mould rinsed in cold water works as well for a gelatine set, and dipping the finished mould briefly in warm water releases it.
- Setting timeThe half-hour given is the simmering time only. Allow at least four hours in the refrigerator, and overnight is better for a mould of this size.
- YieldFive or six portions, as stated. The listed cost of 1s. 10d. is Victorian retail pricing and has no modern equivalent worth calculating.
Moulded fruit creams and jellies were a fixture of the Victorian supper table, and this one teaches the behaviour of a setting agent with almost no other technique to distract from it. Isinglass was the standard domestic gelatine of the nineteenth century, imported chiefly from Russia and prized because it clarified as well as set; it was steadily displaced by cheaper commercial gelatines toward the end of the century. The golden pippin was one of the great English dessert apples of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, praised for its sharpness, and its near-total disappearance from orchards is a fair marker of how much narrower the commercial apple trade became after 1900.