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English Apple Pudding
12 or 14 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced; 1 teaspoonful extract nutmeg, 1 1/2 cupfuls sugar. Line earthenware pudding-mould with paste, pack in apples, sugar, and extract; wet edges; cover, pinch edges together firmly; place in saucepan half full boiling water.
A boiled suet-crust pudding of the old English kind, lined into a basin rather than baked in a dish. Nearly everything here depends on the seal at the rim and on keeping the water at a steady boil.
- The hinge: seal and coverWetting and pinching the paste lid to the lining is what keeps water out of the fruit. Tie a pleated sheet of buttered parchment and foil, or a floured cloth, over the top of the basin as well, so condensation cannot pool on the crust.
- "Paste" means suet crust"Paste" probably means suet crust -- the recipe does not say, but a boiled pudding paste of this kind was usually flour and shredded beef suet bound with cold water, commonly about 2 parts flour to 1 part suet. A plain shortcrust is a poor bet in a water bath; the suet is what keeps it tender.
- The mouldAn "earthenware pudding-mould" is a plain pudding basin; for this quantity of fruit allow at least 2 to 3 quarts. Butter it well before lining. Modern ceramic or heatproof glass basins can be substituted.
- Water level and methodHalf-full of boiling water means the basin is part-submerged and part-steamed. Stand it on a trivet, folded cloth or upturned saucer so it does not sit on the pan floor, keep the water at a bare rolling boil, and top up from a kettle of boiling water so the temperature never drops.
- Cooking timeA basin this size wants about 2.5 hours of steady boiling, covered. The crust should be firm and dry to the touch when unwrapped, and the apples collapsed to a soft mass.
- Extract of nutmegSpice extracts and essences were sold in this period; nutmeg extract is hard to find now. About half a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg is a reasonable substitute for the teaspoonful of extract.
- Apples and sugarTwelve to fourteen apples is roughly 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 lb before peeling, depending on size. Use a cooking apple such as Bramley or Granny Smith, and taste before committing to the full 1.5 cups of sugar, which suits a sharp cooker but will overwhelm a sweet dessert apple.
- Turning out and servingRest the pudding five minutes, run a knife round the rim, then invert onto a deep plate so the juices are caught. It serves six to eight, with cream, custard or a plain hard sauce.
Boiled puddings in a lined basin were a common English answer to a fruit pie in kitchens with a fire and a pot but no reliable oven, and apple was among the usual fillings, since apples stored well from autumn through spring. The technique is older than this printed recipe: a suet crust cooked in water was familiar domestic practice in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it survives today in steamed puddings and in the savoury steak-and-kidney pudding built the same way. The heading "English" suggests the boiled version was being presented as a borrowed style rather than the local default.