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Apple Filling
1 cup white sugar 1 cup water 1 cup grated apples 1 tablespoon Five Roses flour 1 lemon (juice and grated rind) 1 egg.
Cook in double boiler until clear.
When cold spread on cake.
A cooked apple-lemon curd, thickened with a little flour and an egg, meant for spreading between layers rather than over the top. It is simple, but the cues are all visual and the original gives no times.
- "Until clear" is the whole recipeThe mixture starts cloudy from the raw flour and turns translucent and glossy as the starch gelatinizes and the grated apple softens. The original gives no time, and how long it takes will depend on the pan and how hard the water beneath is simmering, so judge it by eye. Pull it before it clears and it tastes pasty and will weep into the cake.
- Guard the eggWhisk the egg with the sugar and flour before any heat, and stir constantly once the pan is on. A double boiler evens the heat and makes curdling far less likely, but water at a rolling boil is still hot enough to scramble the egg, so hold it at a simmer and keep stirring rather than speeding things up over direct flame.
- Five Roses flourA Canadian hard-wheat all-purpose flour from the Lake of the Woods mill. Ordinary all-purpose flour is a direct substitute; one tablespoon in a cup of liquid is a light thickening, so measure it level.
- The applesGrate on the coarse side of a box grater, skin off, and use something tart and firm such as Granny Smith or a Northern Spy. Grate them last and straight into the lemon juice, since a cup of grated apple browns within minutes.
- A cup of water is generousWith only a tablespoon of flour and one egg, this sets soft, more like a sauce than a curd. If you want a filling that holds between layers without sliding, cook it a few minutes past the point where it first goes clear, or start with three-quarters of a cup of water.
- Cool it properlySpreading it warm will melt any frosting and soak the crumb. Press plastic wrap directly on the surface and chill until cold and thick, at least two hours.
- YieldCloser to two and a half or three cups, comfortably enough to fill a two-layer eight- or nine-inch cake. It keeps three or four days covered in the refrigerator.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal and sold or given away alongside its flour, said to be one of the most widely distributed of the Canadian miller's cookbooks in the early twentieth century — the sort of volume that carried the brand name into the ingredient list of nearly every recipe, as it does here. Fillings of this kind, a fruit and sugar mixture set with an egg and a spoonful of flour, are generally understood to belong to a household economy in which lemons were an occasional purchase and apples a winter staple. Stretching one lemon with a cup of grated apple gives you the brightness of a lemon curd at a fraction of the cost, and the flour arguably does work that a curd would otherwise need three or four egg yolks to accomplish.