Apple Cream
Peel and core tart apples; slice and weigh them, and to 3 pounds take 1 cupful of sugar; put in a granite kettle with the grated rind and the juice of I lemon, 2 cloves and I inch of stick cinnamon, simmer slowly until the apples are very tender, then rub through a colander. Scald 1 pint of fresh cream, mix with it the apple pulp and serve cold.
A fruit fool in all but name: sweetened apple puree loosened with scalded cream. Everything depends on cooking the apples down without water and letting the puree cool before the cream goes in.
- Granite kettleGranite ware meant speckled enamelled steel, chosen because it does not react with acid fruit. Any enamelled, stainless or nonstick saucepan does the same job; avoid bare cast iron or unlined copper, which will turn the apples grey and metallic.
- Weights and measuresThree pounds of peeled, cored apple slices is roughly ten to twelve medium apples, or about four pounds as purchased. One cupful of sugar is 200 g. A pint of cream is most likely the US pint, 2 cups.
- Tart applesGranny Smith, Bramley or any firm cooking apple. Sweet dessert apples will collapse into something flat and cloying at this sugar level, and you would want to cut the sugar by a third.
- No liquid addedThe recipe gives none, so the apples must sweat in their own juice. Use the lowest heat with a lid on for the first ten minutes, stir often, and add a spoonful or two of water only if the pan threatens to catch. Reckon 20 to 30 minutes to very tender.
- Scalding the creamHeat to about 180F, when the surface steams and small bubbles ring the edge, then take it off. Scalding was originally about keeping unpasteurised cream sweet; with modern cream it mainly warms it, and you can skip it if you prefer.
- Cool before combiningThe recipe mixes the scalded cream straight into the pulp, but letting both come down to lukewarm or cooler first reduces the risk of a grainy or split result.
- Whole spicesTwo cloves and an inch of cinnamon stick are meant to perfume, not dominate. Fish them out before you press the fruit through the colander, or the puree will taste of clove alone.
- StrainingRubbing through a colander is what gives the smooth body; a food mill or a coarse sieve is faster. A blender works but makes the texture slick rather than fluffy.
- Yield and servingAbout six to eight small glasses. Chill at least two hours and serve in cups or stemmed glasses; a plain wafer or a spoonful of whipped cream on top is in keeping.
Dishes called simply "a cream" fill the dessert chapters of English and American cookbooks from the eighteenth century onward: a fruit puree or flavoured infusion let down with cream, sometimes set with gelatine, sometimes not. This one is the unset kind, closer to what an English cook would call a fool, and it belongs to a long line of apple fools that go back to the days when a household with a cow and an orchard could make dessert out of nothing else. Apples, a cup of sugar, a lemon, two cloves and a pint of cream give six to eight servings of something that reads as a company dish, at a period when the alternative luxury desserts wanted eggs, isinglass, wine or ice.