Peach Betty
6 large peaches 4 tablespoons butter 2/3 cup raspberry-juice 1/2 cup fine bread- or cake-crums 2 tablespoons sugar Cut the peaches in halves, removing the stones. Place the halves in a baking-dish, hollow side up, and put one teaspoon butter or butter substitute in each half. Pour half of the fruit-juice over the peaches; sprinkle with crums and sugar, arrange the second layer and bake, basting occasionally with the remaining juice. Serve the peaches in the hot baking-dish.
A simple baked peach dish from the era when "Betty" meant fruit layered with buttered crumbs. The original gives no oven temperature or time, so both need supplying.
- Oven and timingBake at 350F for 30 to 40 minutes, until the peaches are tender to a knife tip and the crumbs on top have browned. Cover loosely with foil if the crumbs colour before the fruit softens.
- Raspberry juiceThis means strained juice from crushed fresh or cooked raspberries, not a sweetened cordial. Bottled unsweetened raspberry juice or a thin puree pressed through a sieve works; if you use a sweetened commercial juice, cut the added sugar.
- Butter per halfSix peaches give twelve halves, and one teaspoon in each accounts for the full four tablespoons. Nothing is left for greasing the dish, so butter it separately if you want the fruit to release cleanly.
- "Butter substitute"A common phrase in American cookbooks of the period, meaning margarine or a vegetable shortening. Butter tastes better here, since it is the only fat in the dish.
- CrumbsFine dry bread or plain cake crumbs, not fresh soft crumbs, which turn to paste under the juice. Stale sponge or pound cake gives the richer result; dry the crumbs briefly in a low oven if they are at all damp.
- PeelingThe original leaves the skins on. Peaches skinned first give a softer dish; dip them in boiling water for 30 seconds and slip the skins off if you prefer that.
- BastingSpoon the reserved juice over every ten minutes or so, as the recipe directs, to keep the top layer from drying out.
- YieldServes six. Serve warm in the baking dish, as directed, with cream or unsweetened whipped cream.
The Betty is an American household pudding, generally traced to the nineteenth century, in which fruit is layered with buttered crumbs and baked -- a way of using stale bread and cake ends. Apple Brown Betty is the version that survived into school lunchrooms, but cookbooks of the 1910s and 1920s applied the same method to whatever was in season, peaches included. The offhand permission to use "butter substitute" suggests a date when margarine and shortening were ordinary pantry items.