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Apple Pupton
Prepare one pint of apple marmalade (see APPLE MARMALADE), and mix with it the yolks of five eggs, a handful of bread-crumbs, and a piece of butter the size of an egg. Three ounces of stewed pears or cherries make an agreeable addition. Pour the mixture into a well-oiled mould, and bake it in a slow oven. Time to bake, an hour and a half. Sufficient for six persons. Probable cost, 1s. 6d.
A moulded apple pudding held together with egg yolk and crumbs rather than flour. The whole thing depends on the apple base being genuinely thick before the eggs go in.
- Apple marmaladeNot citrus marmalade — here it means apples stewed with sugar to a thick, stiff purée. An imperial pint is 20 fl oz, roughly 2½ cups; a wet, loose purée will not set and the pupton will slump when turned out.
- Slow ovenCassell's gives no temperatures; 'slow oven' is conventionally read as somewhere around 300F. The mixture is bound with yolks, so it wants gentle heat for the full hour and a half — too brisk an oven risks curdling the yolks and cracking the surface.
- Butter the size of an eggRoughly 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons.
- A handful of bread-crumbsTake it as about 1/2 cup of dry crumbs. Their job is to absorb free moisture, so err upward if the apple base is at all slack, and stale crumbs work better than fresh.
- The mouldA plain charlotte mould or 1-quart pudding basin, oiled rather than buttered so the surface releases cleanly. Standing it in a roasting tin of hot water gives more even setting than dry heat, though the original does not ask for it.
- Testing and turning outDone when the centre is set and barely trembles. Rest it 10 to 15 minutes before inverting, or the still-fluid centre pulls the sides apart.
- Pears or cherriesThree ounces of stewed fruit, well drained. Any syrup carried in with it counts as extra liquid the crumbs must take up.
- YieldSix small servings, as stated. Serve warm with cream or a thin custard; the leftover egg whites are enough for a meringue or a light sponge.
"Pupton" is the English rendering of the French poupeton, a mixture bound and baked in a mould and then turned out whole — in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English cookery books the word usually attaches to savoury forcemeat puddings of pigeon or veal. Its appearance in Cassell's among the apple entries reflects how a Victorian household dealt with abundance: an apple crop went first into marmalade, meaning thick reduced purée, and the marmalade then became the base for charlottes, tarts, souffles and puddings like this one. The costing of 1s. 6d. for six is characteristic of the book, which priced almost every dish.