Home › The Principles of Cookery › FRUIT (Gateau de Pommes)
FRUIT (Gateau de Pommes)
Put some ripe red currants into a jar and set it in boiling water, or in the oven, to draw out the juice. Put one pound of the juice into a preserving-pan, with one pound and a half of fine ripe codlings, which should be peeled, and have the cores carefully and wholly extracted. When they have boiled slowly about half an hour, and can be easily pulped, and the mixture is quite smooth, add the same weight of powdered sugar as of apples. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then boil fast the remainder of the time, taking care to keep the contents from burning at the bottom of the pan. If put into a mould the fruit will keep many months. It may be served turned out, ornamented with cut blanched almonds, and with a whipped cream round it. Garnish with light-coloured apple jelly for dessert.
This is a fruit cheese rather than a cake: apples cooked down with redcurrant juice and their own weight of sugar until stiff enough to turn out of a mould. The proportions are given by weight throughout, and that is the part to respect.
- CodlingsAn old English term for a cooking apple; note that the recipe calls for them "fine ripe". Bramley, Granny Smith or any tart apple that collapses to a pulp will do; dessert apples tend to give a sweeter, softer paste with a poorer set.
- Weights, not volumes"One pound of the juice" means a pound on the scale, roughly 2 cups. The sugar is matched to the weight of apples, not to the total mixture, so 1 1/2 lb apples takes 1 1/2 lb sugar.
- Drawing the juiceA jar standing in simmering water is in effect a bain-marie; the recipe offers the oven as an alternative but gives no temperature, so use a low one over an hour or two. The redcurrants supply acid and pectin, though the apples contribute pectin as well.
- Frozen currants workRedcurrants have a short season and freezing actually helps, since the cell walls rupture and the juice runs more freely. Thaw them in the jar and proceed as written.
- Sugar goes in lateThe apples must be fully soft and smooth before the sugar joins them. Sugar added to underdone fruit sets the pieces and they will never pulp properly afterwards.
- How long is "the remainder of the time"The original gives no figure. Boil hard, stirring, until the mixture is thick enough that a spoon drawn across the base of the pan leaves a clear track that holds for a second or two; a fruit cheese firm enough to turn out needs to be taken past the 220F jam-set point. Expect perhaps 30-45 minutes of fast boiling after the sugar dissolves, and use a wide heavy pan.
- BurningOnce it thickens it spits and catches instantly. Keep the spatula moving across the whole base, and hold a long sleeve or oven glove between yourself and the pan.
- Moulding and keepingPour into a lightly oiled mould or straight-sided dish and leave uncovered overnight to firm. The very high sugar content is what preserves it, but for the "many months" the book promises, cover closely and keep it cool and dark, or refrigerate.
- Yield and servingRoughly 2 lb of paste, enough for twelve at dessert. Turn out, stud with blanched almond spikes, and surround with whipped cream; it is also excellent in thin slices with a hard cheese.
Fruit cheeses of this kind — fruit boiled with its own weight of sugar until it can be cut with a knife — were a standard use for a glut of orchard fruit long before the term "gateau" was borrowed for them, and they belong to the same family as Spanish membrillo and English damson cheese. The French name here is decoration rather than provenance: the technique and the pairing of apple with redcurrant are thoroughly English, and versions very close to this one circulated through nineteenth-century household manuals. The word codling for a cooking apple is older still, and by the time this dictionary appeared it was already fading from ordinary use into the vocabulary of cookery books. The recipe demonstrates a rule rather than a dish: acid fruit juice plus sugar plus long boiling gives a set, and the redcurrants are there to supply what the apples lack.