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Apple Dainty
Planned for 1 tablespoon granulated sugar 1 tablespoon butter 2 tablespoons powdered sugar 4 tart apples Juice of 1/2 lemon Dash of nutmeg 1 teaspoon cinnamon Pare and core the apples; cut them into slices half an inch thick; cook with the lemon, nutmeg and granulated sugar, keeping the cover on the pan. When tender, sauté in butter; dust with powdered sugar and cinnamon and serve.
A two-stage apple dish written for the chafing dish, where heat is gentle and the whole thing happens at the table. It works just as well in a wide skillet on a low burner.
- The missing serving numberThe line "Planned for" evidently introduced a number of persons that has dropped out of this copy. Four apples with this quantity of butter and sugar would serve about four.
- Powdered sugarIn American usage of this period "powdered sugar" generally meant sugar ground finer than granulated, though it was not always as fine as today's confectioners' or icing sugar, which some books called "pulverized." Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch, which is harmless in a dusting of this size.
- Almost no liquidThe only moisture is the juice of half a lemon, so the lid is doing all the work — it traps the apples' own steam. Keep the heat low and add a tablespoon of water if the pan sounds dry, or the slices will scorch before they soften.
- Do not overcook the first stageThis is the hinge. The apples are cooked twice, and half-inch slices that are fully soft under the lid will collapse in the butter. Take them off while they still hold a slight resistance at the center, roughly 6 to 8 minutes.
- The sauté — a hot panThe saute -- a hot pan -- Move the tender slices into foaming butter over a brisker flame and leave them alone long enough to color, a minute or two a side. Crowding or stirring turns them to sauce.
- Apple choice"Tart apples" here points to a cooking apple rather than a soft eating one. Granny Smith, Braeburn or Northern Spy hold their slices; Red Delicious and most soft eating apples will not.
- Chafing dish heatThe recipe as printed does not name a chafing dish, but if one is used, the spirit lamp or a modern warming stand gives roughly the equivalent of a low burner: the water pan (bain-marie) suits the covered stage and the direct blazer pan the butter.
- ServingDust the cinnamon and sugar on at the last moment so it stays dry. Good hot with cream; it could equally go beside roast pork or ham.
Chafing-dish cookery had a genuine vogue in American households between roughly 1890 and the First World War, and cookbooks of the period often carried a section of it. The appeal was partly social — the dish sat on the table over its own spirit lamp, so the hostess cooked in company — and partly practical in homes where firing up a coal range for a small late supper made no sense. This recipe has something of the same shape: few ingredients, no oven, nothing that needs long attention, and a finish (butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon) that can happen in front of the guests. Apples were the obvious fruit for it, being the one thing reliably in the cellar from autumn through spring, and "dainty" seems, on the period usage, to have meant a small sweet or light course rather than the name of any particular dish.