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Brown Betty
6 large apples, peeled, cored, and sliced ¼ lb. (1 heaping cup) bread crumbs 2 ozs. (1/2 cup) chopped suet 1 tablespoonful butter 3 ozs. (3 heaping tablespoonfuls) brown sugar ½ teaspoonful grated nutmeg Stew the apples with one tablespoonful of the sugar and one tablespoonful of water till tender, then rub through a sieve. Chop the suet fine, mix it with the bread crumbs, grated nutmeg, and the rest of the sugar.
Grease a fireproof dish, put half of this mixture at the bottom, then put in a layer of the stewed apples, then the rest of the mixture; dot with the butter.
Bake for half an hour in a moderate oven.
A two-layer baked apple pudding rather than the many-layered American version. The whole thing hinges on the apples being cooked down and sieved first, so what goes in the dish is a thick purée, not slices.
- The breadcrumb measureThe printed page gives ¼ lb. (1 heaping cup) of bread crumbs, which is what our text now reads. Four ounces of fresh crumbs is closer to two cups loosely packed, so the "heaping cup" points to them pressed down; either reading works here.
- Moderate oven350F. Half an hour is enough to set and brown the top, since the apple has already been stewed and needs no further cooking.
- SuetBeef suet, the hard fat from around the kidneys, is sold by butchers and in shredded packet form in Britain. The recipe itself reckons two ounces as half a cup shredded. Frozen grated butter can stand in, though it melts sooner and gives a less crumbly top.
- Fireproof dishAn ovenproof earthenware or glazed dish that will go from oven to table. Anything ovenproof of about a quart and a half capacity will do; the pudding should sit no more than two inches deep.
- NutmegA teaspoon and a half of grated nutmeg is a great deal by the modern measure. Start with half a teaspoon and taste the crumb mixture before assembling.
- The applesSix large apples reduce to a good deal less than they look. Use a cooking variety that collapses, such as Bramley, and stew covered over low heat so they steam rather than catch. Sieving is what gives the smooth layer; a food mill does it faster.
- Browning the topDotting with butter is the only thing encouraging colour. If the top is still pale at thirty minutes, give it a few minutes higher up or under a hot grill.
- YieldFour to six as a pudding. Serve warm with cream or custard; it firms up considerably as it cools.
Brown Betty is an American name that turns up in print in the 1860s and had become a fixture of school and household cookery by the end of the century — layers of apple and buttered crumbs, cheap, filling, and forgiving of stale bread. Its origin is usually given as unrecorded; the "Betty" is traditionally explained as a generic servant's name, which is a guess rather than a documented fact. What is notable here is the Anglicisation: suet in place of butter in the crumb mixture, with butter kept only to dot the top, and the apples sieved to a purée rather than layered in slices, which turns a rustic crumb pudding into something closer to a British baked apple charlotte.