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Green Caps
Take six or eight sound young green codlings, scoop out the cores without breaking the fruit, rub the skins with a soft cloth, and place the apples in a preserving-pan, with vine-leaves under and above them, and as much cold water as will cover them. Cover the saucepan closely, and set it by the side of the fire. Let the apples simmer until they are nearly soft, but quite whole. Lift them out as gently as possible, so as not to break them; drain and dry them, and rub them with the white of egg, beaten to a firm froth. Sift some pounded loaf sugar over them, and place them side by side on a tin plate in the oven until they sparkle like frost. Put them into a glass dish, pour a good custard round them, and stick a pretty green sprig in the top of each apple. Time, altogether, one hour. Probable cost, about 1s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian dessert that depends entirely on keeping the apples whole. Everything else — the frosting, the custard, the sprig — is decoration on top of six intact poached apples.
- The hinge: barely a simmer"Set it by the side of the fire" means the gentlest possible heat, with the water never breaking into a real boil. Apples cooked at a rolling boil will burst at the scooped core and collapse when you lift them. Poach until a skewer meets slight resistance, then let them cool a few minutes in the liquid before moving them.
- CodlingsA codling is an old term for a small green cooking apple, picked young and firm. Any tart, firm-fleshed apple that holds its shape will do — Granny Smith, Bramley cut smaller — but avoid soft eating apples, which will not survive being handled twice.
- Vine leavesThey are there to keep the fruit green: the leaves shield the skins and, by tradition, help the apples hold their colour. Use unsprayed fresh leaves, or jarred brined leaves rinsed well and patted dry, or the salt will carry into the fruit.
- The preserving-panSuch pans were commonly unlined copper or brass, and greening fruit in copper was a deliberate old trick. Use stainless steel or enamel instead. Anything reactive is unnecessary here and copper salts are not a seasoning.
- Pounded loaf sugarLoaf sugar was a hard cone broken up and crushed at home; the modern equivalent is caster or superfine sugar. Granulated sugar will sit in visible grains rather than setting into the frosted crust the recipe wants.
- "Until they sparkle like frost"This is a drying stage, not a baking one: a cool oven, low heat, until the coating is set and crisp. The recipe specifies neither temperature nor time. Higher heat browns the meringue and the effect is lost.
- Raw egg whiteThe white is only lightly dried, not cooked through. If you are serving anyone who should avoid undercooked egg, use pasteurised egg white, which whips to a firm froth perfectly well.
- The custardPresumably a pouring custard given elsewhere in the book: egg yolks, sugar and milk stirred over low heat until it coats a spoon. Pour it around the apples cold, not hot, or it will soften the frosting on contact.
- The green sprigChoose something edible and harmless: a mint leaf, a small angelica stem, a sprig of lemon verbena.
- Yield and costFive or six servings, as stated. The "1s." is one shilling, a period price note of no use except as a reminder that this was an inexpensive dish.
"Green caps" belongs to a long English tradition of greening fruit — codlings, gooseberries — in which vine or cabbage leaves were packed around the fruit during slow cooking to preserve a bright colour that plain stewing destroys. The skill on display is control of heat, since the whole effect fails if the apple splits. The frosted finish, egg white and sifted sugar dried in a cool oven, is the same technique Victorian cooks used on iced fruit and on "frosted" ornamental sweets. The dish also shows the period's fondness for building a dessert from three cheap components — poached fruit, a meringue coating, a pouring custard — into something that looked far more expensive than the shilling it cost.