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Apple Pudding, Boiled
INGREDIENTS. -Suet crust, apples, sugar to taste, a few strips of lemon-peel, a few cloves. AVERAGE COST, 10d.
Make a good suet crust by either of the given recipes, using for a moderate-sized pudding from to 1 lb. of flour, with the other ingredients in proportion Butter a basin; line it with some paste; pare, core, and cut the apples into slices, and fill the basin with these, putting the sugar in the middle, the flavouring, and cover with crust; pinch the edges together, flour the cloth, place it over the pudding, tie it securely, and put it into plenty of fastboiling water; let it boil from 2 to 3 hours; then turn it out of the basin and send to table quickly. Apple puddings APPLE SAUCE. may also be boiled in a cloth without a basin; but, when made in this way, must be served without the least delay, as the crust soon becomes heavy. A netted cloth gives them a pretty appearance. This pudding does not spoil by being boiled an extra hour; care, however, must be taken to keep it well covered with water all the time, and not to allow it to stop boiling.
TIME.- From 2 to 3 hours, according to the quality of the apples.
SEASONABLE from August to March.
Apple Sauce (for Geese, Pork, &c.). -INGREDIENTS for a goose or pair of ducks. -1 lb. of apples, sifted sugar to taste, a piece of butter the size of a walnut; water.
AVERAGE COST, 3d.
Peel, core, and quarter the apples, and throw them into cold water to preserve their whiteness. Put them in a saucepan, with sufficient water to moisten them, and boil till soft enough to pulp. Beat them up, adding sugar to taste, and the butter.
TIME. According to the apples, about hour.
A classic English boiled suet pudding: raw apple sealed in suet pastry and steamed in a basin for hours, so the fruit collapses into sweet sauce inside its own crust. Two details in the original text have lost their fractions, so treat the quantities below as the working figures.
- The crustSuet crust is roughly 2 parts plain flour to 1 part shredded beef suet, a pinch of salt, and cold water to bind. Use 3/4 lb (about 340 g) flour for a moderate 1.5-2 pint basin; vegetable suet works identically. Roll out about two-thirds for the lining and keep the rest for the lid.
- Boiling versus steamingThe pudding sits in fast-boiling water that must cover it throughout, so use a deep pan with a trivet or folded cloth beneath the basin and top up from a boiling kettle. A modern steamer over simmering water does the same job with less risk of water creeping under the cloth.
- Covering itCover the basin with pleated baking parchment and foil, then tie with string and make a string handle. The floured cloth of the original is authentic but leaks more readily; if you use one, flour the side that faces the pastry so it does not stick.
- TimingTwo hours suits soft cooking apples such as Bramleys, three hours firmer eating apples. The note that an extra hour does no harm is accurate for a suet crust, which only grows more tender.
- Sugar and flavouringReckon on 4-6 oz (110-170 g) sugar for 1.5 lb of apples, less if the fruit is sweet. Two or three cloves and a few pared strips of lemon zest are plenty; whole cloves are easier to find and remove than ground.
- Turning outRest the pudding two or three minutes before inverting, then serve at once. The crust firms and turns heavy as it cools, which is why the original insists on speed, and doubly so for the cloth-only version, which has no basin to hold its shape.
- YieldA basin of this size will feed about six. Custard or pouring cream is a common accompaniment.
Boiled suet puddings were a mainstay of English domestic cookery from the seventeenth century onward, made possible by the pudding cloth, which freed cooks from stuffing mixtures into animal guts. Beeton gives the paste-lined basin as the main method here, noting that apple puddings "may also be boiled in a cloth without a basin", and for exactly the reason she states: a cloth-boiled crust has nothing to support it and goes heavy quickly out of the water. The "seasonable from August to March" note reflects a period before controlled-atmosphere storage, when apples were eaten from the picking in late summer through whatever the loft or apple store could hold into early spring. Flour, suet and windfall apples fed large households at small expense.