Brown Betty
1 quart chopped apples 1 pint raisins (1 cup would do) 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup zwieback crumbs Simmer the raisins for fifteen minutes in sufficient water to cover them. Drain off the juice and save it. Put half the apples in the bottom of a pudding dish; and cover with half the raisins. Sprinkle over the raisins half the sugar and half the crumbs. Spread over this the rest of the apples; and put the rest of the raisins over the top of the apples. Sprinkle on the rest of the sugar and crumbs. Add the salt and lemon juice to the water that was drained from the raisins, and pour it over the top of the pudding. Set the pudding in a pan of water, cover and bake one hour or longer. Remove from the pan of water, and bake without the cover long enough to brown the top lightly. Serve with cocoanut sauce.
A crumb-and-fruit pudding with no butter and no eggs, baked in a water bath rather than dry — closer to a steamed pudding than the buttery Brown Betty most cooks know.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. A moderate oven, around 350F, suits it; the water bath keeps the interior gentle regardless, so the setting matters mainly for the final uncovered browning, which wants a hotter oven or a few minutes under the broiler.
- Volumes and weightsA quart of chopped apples is roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb of apples before peeling and coring, about four medium fruit. A pint of raisins is roughly 10 to 11 oz; the parenthetical "1 cup would do" halves that.
- ZwiebackZwieback is a twice-baked sweetened rusk, once sold everywhere as a teething biscuit. Any dry, faintly sweet rusk or plain biscotti crumbs work; ordinary fresh breadcrumbs are softer and will disappear into the fruit rather than holding any texture.
- Save the raisin waterThe fifteen-minute simmer plumps the raisins and produces the only added liquid in the pudding. Do not discard it -- with the salt and lemon juice it is what keeps the crumbs from baking dry.
- The water bathSet the pudding dish in a pan and add hot water to come halfway up the sides. Covered, this steams the apples soft without setting a crust; the dish only browns after the cover and the water pan come off.
- TimingOne hour covered is a minimum, and firm baking apples may want ninety minutes. Test with a knife tip: the apples should offer no resistance before you uncover.
- No fat at allUnlike most Brown Betty recipes there is no butter. The result is lean and fruit-forward, which is why the book pairs it with a sauce; a plain cream or custard serves as well as the cocoanut sauce called for.
- YieldNo yield is given; the quantities suit roughly a 2-quart dish and should serve about six.