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Apple Puddings (alexandra's)
Pare, core, and quarter half a dozen finely-flavoured apples. Place them in a saucepan with a table-spoonful of water, the thin rind of half a lemon chopped small, and two table-spoonfuls of sugar. Simmer gently until reduced to a pulp; then stir in, while hot, a piece of butter the size of an egg, and when cold add two eggs well beaten, a breakfast-cupful of finely-grated bread-crumbs, half a cupful of milk or cream, and a little grated nutmeg. Mix thoroughly, then pour into little cups previously oiled, and bake for twenty minutes in a moderate oven. Turn them out, and serve with sifted sugar. Probable cost, 10d.
A baked apple custard set with breadcrumbs, portioned into small moulds. It works cleanly in ramekins, with one point of order that decides whether it sets or scrambles.
- Cool the pulp firstThe instruction to add the eggs "when cold" is the hinge. Beaten eggs stirred into hot apple purée will curdle into threads, and no amount of mixing afterwards will smooth them out. Let the sweetened pulp come down to room temperature before the eggs go in.
- Butter the size of an eggRoughly 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. It is stirred in while the apple is still hot so it melts through evenly.
- A breakfast-cupfulA breakfast cup is larger than a teacup: reckon on 8 to 10 fl oz by volume, which for finely grated fresh crumbs is around 2 to 3 oz by weight. Use dry bread grated fine rather than commercial dried crumbs, which absorb far more liquid.
- Half a cupful of milkThe cup is not specified; if it is the breakfast cup just named, half would be about 5 fl oz. Around 4 to 5 fl oz gives a mixture that is thick but pourable; add it gradually and stop when the batter drops heavily from the spoon.
- Moderate ovenAbout 350F/180C. Twenty minutes suits small cups; the puddings should be set at the centre and just coming away from the sides. Larger moulds will need longer.
- "Oiled" cupsPeriod usage for greased. Butter the moulds well and dust them with fine crumbs or caster sugar, which gives the puddings a surface to release from when turned out.
- The apples"Finely-flavoured" asks for apples with good flavour; since they must reduce to a pulp, a Bramley or another cooking apple suits better than a firm eating apple. Half a dozen medium apples yields roughly 1 lb of purée once reduced.
- YieldThe recipe does not state a number; half a dozen apples will fill about six small cups. Turned out and dusted with sifted (icing) sugar.
Cassell's ran to thousands of entries and distinguished many of them only by a name attached in brackets, and "Alexandra's" is often taken to nod to Alexandra of Denmark, Princess of Wales from 1863 and queen from 1901 — a fashionable dedication of the kind Victorian cookery writers applied freely to puddings, soups and garnishes without implying any royal connection. The pudding itself belongs to a large family of breadcrumb-bound baked custards that let a household stretch eggs and cream with stale bread, and the apple-and-lemon-peel base is the standard English apple marmalade used across the period for tarts and charlottes. The "probable cost, 10d." is characteristic of the book: Cassell's priced many of its dishes so that a cook or a mistress budgeting the week could compare one supper against another at a glance.