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Apple Sauce, Baked
Apple sauce may be made by placing the apples and the water in the oven in a closely-covered jar until they are reduced to a pulp, and then beating them as in the next recipe.
A dictionary entry rather than a full recipe: Cassell's gives the oven method and refers you to the neighbouring entry for quantities and finishing. Everything you need to fill the gap is standard.
- The missing quantitiesThe "next recipe" is the stovetop version, and it is there that Cassell's gives quantities and finishing; the text is not reproduced here. The usual proportions for such a sauce are apples, peeled, cored and quartered, with barely enough water to keep them from catching, sugar and butter going in after the pulping, to taste.
- The jarA "closely-covered jar" means a stoneware or earthenware jar with a lid, the Victorian equivalent of a covered casserole. Any lidded ovenproof dish or small Dutch oven does the same job; the point is that no steam escapes, so the fruit stews in its own moisture rather than drying out.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; domestic ranges were rarely calibrated and cooks judged heat by hand and habit. As a modern equivalent, treat it as a moderate oven, 325-350F, for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the apple. The fruit should collapse when pressed, not colour.
- Which applesThis method assumes a true cooking apple that falls to fluff — Bramley in Britain, Northern Spy or a similar tart baking apple elsewhere. Dessert apples such as Gala or Fuji hold their shape and will need mashing or sieving rather than beating.
- Beating and finishingBeat with a wooden spoon while hot for a rustic texture, or pass through a sieve for a smooth sauce. Sugar to taste, and a knob of butter beaten in at the end for gloss, following the neighbouring recipe.
- YieldA pound of apples gives roughly a cup and a half of sauce, enough for four with roast pork or goose.
Apple sauce as an accompaniment to rich roast meat is long established in English cookery, appearing in print well before Cassell's and generally explained by the same logic as gooseberry with mackerel or mint with lamb: a sharp fruit acidity to cut fat, in this case the fat of pork and goose. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery was an alphabetical reference of some thousands of entries, and it had a habit of giving a dish two or three brief variant methods in succession. The covered stoneware jar in the oven was a standard piece of Victorian kitchen equipment, used for everything from stewing beef to setting custards, and the phrase "in a closely-covered jar" appears in the text without further explanation.