Apple Slump
Put quartered or sliced apples into a deep granite kettle, add sugar to taste and I spoonful of butter and cook until the apples are nearly tender. Fit over them a rich biscuit crust rolled out almost an inch thick, cover closely and keep the apples simmering gently for three-quarters of an hour; uncover and place in a hot oven until browned. This is a substantial luncheon dish. Apple Pot Pie with Maple Sugar Sauce Half fill a deep dish with sour apples which have been quartered, pared and cored. Pour over them a little boiling water and place in a hot oven until tender. Make a crust as for baking-powder biscuit, roll out an inch thick; lay it over the apples and return to the oven for about forty minutes, or until the crust is done. For the sauce, cook together 2 tablespoonfuls of butter and 1 teaspoonful of flour, add ½ cupful of maple syrup and a tiny pinch of mace and cook until clear and smooth. 人
A stovetop steamed dumpling crust over stewed apples, finished under heat to brown. The whole trick is keeping the pot at a bare simmer with the lid on so the crust steams through rather than boiling into the fruit.
- Granite kettle"Granite" here means graniteware, an enamelled steel pot, not stoneware. Any heavy, wide, lidded saucepan or Dutch oven with a tight cover works; width matters more than depth so the crust sits in one layer.
- QuantitiesNone are given. About 2 lb of apples, ½ to ¾ cup sugar depending on how sour they are, and a tablespoon of butter fills a 3-quart pot and serves four to six.
- A hot ovenRoughly 425-450F is a reasonable modern reading, and it is wanted only for the browning at the end, which the recipe times simply as "until browned". The crust is already cooked through by then; the oven is doing colour, not baking.
- Rich biscuit crustA baking-powder biscuit dough enriched with extra butter, rolled out in one sheet rather than cut into rounds. Roll it slightly smaller than the pot so steam can circulate at the edges.
- Do not lift the lidThe crust cooks in trapped steam. Uncovering partway lets it collapse and go gluey; leave it shut until the three-quarters of an hour is up.
- Simmer, not boilA rolling boil pushes fruit juice up into the underside of the dough and scorches the sugar on the bottom. Keep it at the lowest heat that still shows movement, and add a few spoonfuls of water at the start if the apples are dry.
- TimingForty-five minutes is generous for a one-inch crust. Test with a skewer at thirty-five minutes; it should come out clean and the surface should feel dry and springy.
- ServingSpoon it out crust and all into bowls, with cream or milk poured over. It is best eaten hot; the steamed crust turns heavy once cold.
"Slump" is a New England name for fruit stewed under a dumpling crust, cousin to the grunt and the pandowdy, and the terms have never been used consistently from one town to the next. It belongs to the era of the open hearth, when a covered kettle over coals was easier to manage than an oven, and the recipe here preserves that method while grudgingly adding an oven at the end for colour. The dish is traditionally associated with Louisa May Alcott's household at Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, though that link rests on family anecdote rather than any recipe in her hand. The economics of the thing are straightforward: windfall apples, flour, a little sugar and a spoonful of butter make a filling dish, and the author's note that it serves as a luncheon course rather than a dessert tells you it was expected to do real work at the table.