Pretty Apples
Pare and core nice sized apples. Make sirup using 2 cups sugar and one cup of water. When sirup gets a little thick put in apples. Watch carefully, turning with fork until tender through. Take from fire, place on platter, when cool stick blanched almonds around them and fill cavity with cherries and nuts. Cook syrup until it jellies and pour over apples. Another Way-Pare and core, put in hot sirup with 3 tablespoons maple sirup, and after filling the cavity with bananas, turn carefully until tender. Remove from fire and put one marshmallow on each apple. Run in oven to brown marshmallow. Delicious served with meats. Apples cooked in syrup and delicately flavored with mint extract are lovely to serve with meat-color green.
A stovetop poached apple in heavy syrup, dressed up three different ways. The whole thing hinges on keeping the apples intact, so the fruit and the syrup both need watching.
- Choose a firm appleUse a variety that holds its shape in heat -- Braeburn, Granny Smith, Northern Spy. A soft-fleshed apple will collapse into sauce well before it is tender through.
- "Sirup a little thick"Two cups sugar to one cup water is roughly a 2:1 syrup. A few minutes' boiling, until it coats a spoon, is enough; the recipe wants it only slightly thickened at this stage, since it is reduced much further at the end.
- Poaching, not boilingOnce the apples go in, hold the syrup at a bare simmer and turn them gently with a fork or two spoons. Whole pared apples take roughly 15-25 minutes depending on size and variety; test with a skewer at the thickest part.
- The jellied syrupAfter the apples come out, reduce the syrup further until it thickens and sets on a cold plate. Pour it over while still fluid or it will not spread.
- Blanched almondsBuy blanched slivered or whole almonds, or drop whole almonds in boiling water for a minute and slip the skins off. They must be dry before they are pressed into the cooling glaze or they will slide.
- The marshmallow variationBroil rather than bake: two to three minutes under a hot broiler, watched constantly. Marshmallow goes from brown to black in seconds.
- Mint extract and colourMint extract is potent; a quarter teaspoon in the syrup goes a long way. The green colouring is purely decorative and can be left out.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantity; make as many apples as you need. It is offered as an accompaniment to meat, but will also serve as a dessert, one per person with the jellied syrup spooned over.