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Apple Amber
Core, peel, and chop three-fourths pound of apples. Mix together four ounces of suet, two each of sugar and flour, and six of breadcrumbs. When chopped and mixed add a little nutmeg and grated lemon peel and two beaten eggs. Stir thoroughly and place in a well buttered mould with cloth tied tight over the top. Boil three hours.
GERMAN APPLE CAKE (Simple) No. I or Apfel Kuchen Add to one pint of the sponge for the usual light bread one-half cup each of sugar and shortening, one-half teaspoon salt, one cup of milk and enough flour to make a soft dough. Spread this half an inch thick in the bakingpan and on it place in rows thin, lengthwise slices of apples. Let this rise half an hour in a warm spot; sprinkle with one half cup of sugar and cinnamon mixed-also a few bits of butter-then bake.
GERMAN APPLE CAKE No. 2 This form of "kuchen" may be made with baking powder. Use a pint of flour in which have been sifted a half teaspoon of salt and one and a half of baking powder with a tablespoon of sugar. Rub through this two tablespoons of butter, and mix well with one beaten egg and enough milk to make a thick batter (three-fourths cup or more). Place in baking pan one inch thick and over the top place apples cut into eighths, in rows, sharp edges pressed into the dough. Sprinkle as above with cinnamon and sugar and bake in brisk oven.
GERMAN APPLE CAKE No. 3 Into a pound and a quarter of sifted flour rub threefourths pound of butter and roll out an inch thick. Have ready pared, cored, and sliced thin, (as in foregoing recipe) juicy apples mixed with one or two quinces and half a pound of raisins seeded. Sweeten well with brown sugar and add a little nutmeg with a wineglassful of rosewater or the juice and rind of two lemons. Place this mixed fruit on the pastry and fold over, then put in a baking pan which has been sprinkled with a little butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Also on top sprinkle this and while baking add more. Bake two hours in moderate oven.
Four recipes run together here: a boiled suet pudding and three versions of German apple kuchen, one raised with bread sponge, one with baking powder, one built on a rich butter pastry. The measurements are by weight in the first and third, by volume in the middle two.
- Apple Amber in metric and cupsThree-fourths pound of apples is about 340 g prepared, roughly three medium apples. The mix is 4 oz (115 g) suet, 2 oz (55 g) each sugar and flour, 6 oz (170 g) breadcrumbs — a stiff, bready pudding rather than a fruit one. The recipe gives no mould size or yield; the quantities will roughly fill a 1-quart basin.
- SuetBeef suet, the hard fat from around the kidneys, sold shredded in some butchers and as packaged shredded suet (often vegetable now). Chilled grated butter works, though the pudding will be denser; suet melts later in the steaming and leaves the crumb open.
- Boiling the mouldThe cloth tied tight over the top keeps water out. Modern practice is a pleated round of parchment under foil, tied with string, and a steady steam rather than a rolling boil. Three hours is right for this size; top up the pan with boiling water so it never runs dry.
- "The sponge for the usual light bread"Cake No. 1 assumes you already have a yeast sponge working for the day's bread. A pint is 2 cups of loose, bubbly sponge. Starting from scratch, ferment 2 cups flour, 1 cup warm water and a teaspoon of yeast until foaming and slack, then proceed. The recipe gives no oven heat; around 375F for 25-30 minutes suits a cake of this thickness.
- Oven words"Brisk" in cake No. 2 means a hot oven, usually reckoned at roughly 400-425F. "Moderate" in No. 3 is generally taken as about 350F. The two hours given for No. 3 is long by current standards; check at 50-60 minutes and take it out when the pastry is deep gold and the fruit tender.
- A wineglassfulIn books of this period a wineglass is about 2 fl oz (60 ml). Rosewater at that strength is assertive — start with half and taste, since modern rosewaters vary widely in concentration. The lemon alternative given is the safer choice.
- QuincesRaw quince is hard and astringent and will not soften in the same time as apple. Slice it thinner than the apple, or poach it briefly first, or the fruit layer will be uneven.
- Cake No. 3 is a pastry, not a batterThree-fourths pound butter to a pound and a quarter of flour is a very rich short paste. Work it cold and quickly, and chill the rolled sheet before filling, or the butter will run before the oven sets it.
- Pressing the apples inThe instruction in No. 2 to press the sharp edge of each eighth into the dough matters: it anchors the fruit as the batter rises and gives the ridged top these cakes are known for. Laid flat, the slices slide and steam.
"Amber" was a common English pudding name in the nineteenth century for apple mixtures bound with egg and enriched with lemon — some ambers were baked under meringue, others, like this one, boiled in a cloth-covered mould in the old suet-pudding manner. The three kuchen that follow show how thoroughly German baking had entered American home cookbooks by the turn of the century: the same fruit-topped yeasted slab appears in German-American communities from Pennsylvania to the Midwest, and the book gives it three ways — one raised with bread sponge, one with baking powder, one made as pastry. Rosewater in the third recipe is a survival from an older English kitchen, where it flavoured sweet dishes long before vanilla extract became cheap and common; here it is offered with lemon as an alternative.