Home › A Group of Foreign Soups › Apple Soup
Apple Soup
Put 4 cups of peeled and quartered apples over to cook, with water to keep them from scorching. When mushy rub through a sieve, add a pint and a half of water, 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar, a pinch of salt, and a little cinnamon. Thicken very slightly with corn starch. Dried plums, prunes, or cherries may be soaked overnight, then cooked in the same way.
A thin sweet fruit soup, served hot or chilled, of the kind that appears in German and Scandinavian cookery as a first course or a light dessert. The whole thing takes about half an hour.
- Apple quantityFour cups of peeled, quartered apples is roughly 1 1/2 lb of whole fruit, or four to five medium apples. Tart cooking apples give the best balance against the sugar.
- A pint and a halfThree cups of water, added after sieving. Add it gradually rather than all at once; the finished soup should coat a spoon lightly but still pour freely.
- Cornstarch, measuredThe original says only "very slightly." Start with 2 teaspoons cornstarch slaked in 2 tablespoons cold water, stir it into the simmering soup, and let it cook a full minute so the starch loses its raw taste. Add more only if it seems watery once it has cooled slightly, since starch thickens further as the temperature drops.
- Sieve or blenderRubbing through a sieve was the usual way to get a smooth puree; a blender or immersion blender does it faster. Pass it through a sieve afterward anyway if you want a silkier texture.
- CinnamonA 2-inch stick simmered with the apples, then removed, gives a cleaner flavour than ground cinnamon stirred in at the end, which can taste dusty in a clear soup.
- The dried fruit versionPrunes, dried plums or dried cherries need an overnight soak in cold water, and cook them in that soaking water rather than fresh, since much of the flavour has already gone into it. Dried fruit is sweeter than apples, so taste before adding the full 3 tablespoons of sugar.
- Yield and servingMakes about 5 cups, or four to six small servings. Serve hot in cups, or chilled with a spoonful of sour cream, yogurt or whipped cream, and a dry rusk or zwieback on the side.