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Apple Torte
7 apples, peeled and cored 6 tablespoons sugar 2 tablespoons shortening 6 eggs 2 cups sour cream 2 teaspoons vanilla 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 2 tablespoons sugar 3 cups zweibach crumbs Cook apples, 6 tablespoons sugar and the shortening till apples are soft. Beat eggs, add cream and seasonings and add to cooked apples. Boil together till thick.
Place layer of 2 cups of the crumbs in bottom of well greased baking dish, then a layer of the apple mixture, and continue alternately until pan is filled. Bake 1 hour in moderate oven 375 degrees. Serves 8.
A crumb-layered baked custard torte of the sort that turns up in central European home baking, here scaled for a family of eight. The whole dish hinges on how you treat the egg-and-cream mixture before it goes in the pan.
- Do not literally boil the custardSix eggs and two cups of sour cream stirred into hot apples will curdle if brought to a true boil. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens to the consistency of a loose pudding, then stop; the hour in the oven finishes the setting.
- Zweibach is zwiebackTwice-baked rusk, sold as zwieback toast or in the baby-food aisle. Three cups of crumbs, crushed fine, will take the better part of a pound of rusks; weigh or measure rather than trusting a single box. Plain dry rusks, Melba toast or dry-toasted white bread crumbs behave the same way.
- The crumbs do not add up cleanlyThree cups are listed, two go in the bottom layer, leaving one cup for the remaining crumb layers. That works, but the base will be much thicker than the upper layers. Splitting the total as 1 1/2 cups on the bottom and 1 1/2 cups between and on top gives a better-balanced torte.
- Sour cream then and nowSour cream of the period may well have been naturally soured sweet cream, thinner and less tangy than today's cultured product. Modern full-fat sour cream works directly; creme fraiche is closer in texture. Avoid light or fat-free versions, which weep in a baked custard.
- ApplesSeven apples means roughly 2 1/2 lb, or about 7 cups sliced. A firm cooking apple that breaks down but not to water \tsuch as Granny Smith, Bramley or Golden Delicious \tis right. Cooked with only 6 tablespoons of sugar, the finished torte is barely sweet by modern standards.
- Pan and oven375F is at the upper edge of what the book calls moderate. A 9x13 inch dish or a 3-quart casserole, well greased, holds the quantity. Check at 45 minutes: the center should be just set with a slight wobble, and the top may need loose foil to keep the crumbs from darkening.
- The second 2 tablespoons of sugarThe ingredient list gives sugar twice. The larger amount cooks with the apples; the smaller is meant for the egg-and-cream mixture, or scattered over the top layer of crumbs before baking. Either use is consistent with the method.
- ServingServes 8 generously. Let it stand 20 to 30 minutes before cutting \tstraight from the oven the custard layers will slump.