Apple Trifle
INGREDIENTS for moderate-sized trifle.-2 lbs. of apples, the rind of 1/2 lemon, 6 to 8 oz. of pounded sugar, 1/2 pint of milk, 1/2 pint of cream, 2 eggs.
AVERAGE COST, 1s. 8d.
Peel, core, and cut the apples into thin slices, and put them into a saucepan with 2 tablespoonfuls of water, 6 oz. of sugar, and the grated lemon-rind. Boil all together until quite tender, and pulp through a sieve; put them at the bottom of the dish to form a thick layer. Stir together the milk, half the cream, and the eggs, well beaten, with a little sugar, over the fire, and let the mixture thicken, but do not allow it to reach the boiling-point. When thick, take it off the fire; let it cool a little, then pour it over the apples. Whip the remainder of the cream with sugar, lemon-peel, &c., the same as for other trifles; heap it high over the custard, and garnish with strips of bright apple jelly, preserved cherries, &c.
TIME. from 30 to 40 minutes to stew the apples; 10 minutes to stir the custard over the fire.
SEASONABLE from August to March.
TIME. From 20 to 30 minutes to stew the apples.
SEASONABLE from August to March.
A stirred custard over apple pulp, finished with whipped cream — no sponge, no wine, and none of the soaked biscuit a modern trifle implies. The garbled first line is a typesetting artefact of the original page; ignore it and begin at "Peel, core, and cut the apples."
- Pints are imperialBeeton's half-pint is 10 fl oz, not 8, so read the milk and the cream each as about 1 1/4 cups. Only half the cream goes into the custard, so the custard itself is about 15 fl oz (a little under 2 cups); the remaining cream is whipped for the top.
- Pounded sugarSugar sold in loaves had to be broken and pounded; the modern equivalent is caster or superfine sugar. Six ounces (a scant cup) goes into the apples; at the top of the 6-to-8 oz range that leaves up to 2 oz for the custard and the cream, which the recipe otherwise calls simply 'a little sugar'.
- Choose a cooking appleTwo pounds of Bramley, Granny Smith or another tart variety will collapse to a thick pulp in the 20 to 40 minutes given. Dessert apples hold their shape and give a watery, slack layer that the custard will sink into.
- The custard is the hinge"Do not allow it to reach the boiling-point" is the whole instruction. Two eggs to about 15 fl oz of dairy is a thin custard with no starch to protect it; hold it at 170-180F, stirring constantly, and pull it the moment it coats the spoon. A metal bowl over simmering water is more forgiving than direct heat.
- Cool before layeringWarm custard poured onto the apple pulp will marble into it, and it will melt whipped cream on contact. Cool the custard to room temperature, then chill the assembled dish for at least two hours so the layers set enough to spoon out cleanly.
- Cream for whippingThe "cream" here is what Britain still sells as double cream, around 48 per cent fat. Heavy or whipping cream works; single or light cream will not hold the high heap the recipe asks for.
- Lemon-peel in the cream"The same as for other trifles" means the cream is flavoured — steep a strip of peel in it, then remove it before whipping, or grate the zest in finely. Left in as strips it is unpleasant to eat.
- YieldA "moderate-sized trifle" on this scale serves six to eight; allow a glass dish of at least 8 cups for the pulp, the custard and the heaped cream. The average cost of 1s. 8d. reflects mid-Victorian prices and is of historical interest only.
Trifle began in the sixteenth century as little more than sweetened, flavoured cream, and only later acquired the sponge, jam and fortified wine that define it now; Beeton's apple version is a reminder that the name once covered any layered cream dish. Marking it "seasonable from August to March," she is writing for the months when English apples were cheap and abundant, before cold storage and imports made them a year-round item. The garnish of "bright apple jelly, preserved cherries, &c." belongs to the same economy: the trimmings of autumn preserving, held back to decorate a dish in midwinter. The duplicated TIME and SEASONABLE lines at the end, with different stewing times, along with the stray fragment of a different recipe at the head of the page, point to a printing or transcription muddle of unknown origin.