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Apple Dumplings, Boiled
The apples may be prepared asfor baked dumplings (No.1) then each one tied in a cloth, plunged into boiling water, and boiled hard an hour and a half. One large dumpling may be made, filled with sliced apples and sugar. In the latter case it will require two hours to cook thoroughly, and the water must boil constantly, being replenished as needed.
This is a cross-reference recipe: the pastry and the filling come from the baked dumpling entry that precedes it, and what is given here is only the boiling method. A few things need translating before it will work in a modern kitchen.
- The missing half of the recipe"Prepared as for baked dumplings (No. 1)" points back to the preceding entry, which is not reproduced here; dumplings of that name are typically whole cored apples filled with sugar and spice and wrapped in pastry. In a book of this period that crust is usually a suet or short paste stiff enough to survive an hour and a half of boiling; a flaky butter puff will disintegrate.
- The pudding clothA square of closely woven cotton or unbleached calico, scalded in boiling water, wrung out, and dusted thickly with flour on the inside before the dumpling goes in. The wet flour forms a skin that keeps water out. An untreated dry cloth will let the dough go to paste.
- Tie looselyLeave slack when you tie the string. The crust swells considerably and a tight cloth splits it or forces the filling out.
- Keep it off the bottomSet the dumplings on a trivet, an inverted plate, or a folded cloth in the pot. Resting directly on the metal scorches the crust where it touches.
- "Boil hard" and constant replenishmentThe water must stay at a full boil throughout, and any water added must be boiling. Cold top-ups drop the temperature and make the crust heavy and sodden. This is the instruction the recipe repeats, and it is the one that decides the outcome.
- TimingsNinety minutes for individual dumplings and two hours for one large one are correct for a suet crust, not excessive. Firm cooking apples are essential; modern dessert varieties collapse to sauce well before the crust is done.
- UnmouldingLift out, dip briefly in cold water to loosen the cloth, then untie and invert onto a warm dish immediately. Left in the cloth, the dumpling steams and sticks.
- Yield and servingOne apple per dumpling; the recipe gives no size or yield for the large version. Send it out hot with hard sauce, cream, or a sweetened lemon sauce, sauces of the kind found elsewhere in books of this period.
Boiled puddings tied in a floured cloth were the backbone of English and American cookery from the seventeenth century onward, for the plain reason that a pot over the fire was available in every kitchen while a reliable oven was not. The pudding cloth freed cooks from the animal gut that earlier puddings required, and it stayed in use long after ranges became common — as here, where the boiled version is offered alongside the baked one as an equal alternative rather than a relic. Apples suited the method particularly well, keeping in the cellar from autumn through spring.