Home › The Principles of Cookery › Rice and Apples
Rice and Apples
Simmer six ounces of rice in a quart of milk till it is tender and has absorbed the liquor. Sweeten it, and flavour with grated nutmeg or grated lemon-rind. Pare eight or ten large apples, quarter and core them, and lay them in a saucepan with the chopped rind and strained juice of a large fresh lemon, four table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar, and a wine-glassful of water. Let them simmer gently until they are tender, then drain them on a sieve. They must not be allowed to break. Spread the rice on a dish, and make it slightly hollow in the centre. Lay part of the apples upon it, spread more rice over these, then add more apples, and repeat until the ingredients are used, and the rice has assumed the form of a pyramid. Boil the juice which drained from the apples to a thick syrup, and pour this hot over the whole. Garnish the dish prettily with angelica or with lemon or orange-rind cut into strips and stewed in the syrup. Serve either hot or cold. Time, three-quarters of an hour to simmer the rice, half an hour to stew the apples. Probable cost, 1s. 2d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian rice mould in all but name: sweet milk rice built up in layers with poached apple quarters and glazed with the reduced poaching syrup. The whole thing succeeds or fails on whether the apples hold their shape.
- The hinge: keep the apples wholeChoose a firm apple that does not collapse — Braeburn or Granny Smith — and poach the quarters at a bare tremble, uncovered, turning them once rather than stirring. A cooking variety like Bramley will go to purée quickly and the pyramid will never stand.
- Quantities in modern termsSix ounces of rice is about 170 g (a scant cup); a quart of milk in an English book of this period is 40 fl oz, roughly 1.1 litres. A wine-glassful is around 2 fl oz / 60 ml.
- Which riceUse a short or round-grain pudding rice. Long-grain will absorb the milk without giving the creamy body the dish needs to be spread and shaped.
- Simmering the riceThree-quarters of an hour is right for a low flame, but milk rice catches easily. Use a heavy pan, keep the heat very low, and stir often toward the end as it thickens; a diffuser under the pan is worth the trouble.
- SweeteningNo amount is given for the rice. Two to three tablespoons of sugar for this quantity is in keeping, added once the grain is tender so it does not slow the absorption.
- Powdered sugarIn Victorian usage this means finely ground white sugar, not the cornflour-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Ordinary caster or granulated sugar is the equivalent.
- The syrupThe drained poaching liquid is thin; boil it hard in a wide pan until it coats a spoon, five to ten minutes. Reduce it too far and it sets to toffee on the cold rice.
- AngelicaCandied angelica stem is now hard to find outside specialist confectioners. The recipe's own alternative — strips of lemon or orange zest simmered in the syrup — is easier and tastes better.
- YieldFive or six, as stated. It builds and glazes best while warm; if serving cold, add the syrup shortly before it goes to table so the rice does not weep.
Rice puddings sweetened with milk and spice run back to the medieval European kitchen, but the layered, moulded, syrup-glazed treatment here belongs squarely to the nineteenth century, when cheap imported rice and cheap sugar met the Victorian appetite for dishes built into shapes. Cassell's, first issued in the 1870s and reprinted for decades, was generally understood to be aimed at middle-class households of the sort that might run on one or two servants, and the costing or six people is the point of the entry as much as the method: this is an impressive-looking sweet made from pantry staples and a handful of apples. Angelica, the candied stem of Angelica archangelica, was often used as a garnish, valued for its bright green against pale puddings; its near-disappearance from British kitchens is often cited as a sign of how far confectionery fashion has moved.