Apple Cream
4 cupfuls of grated apple. 2 cupfuls of sugar. Butter size of an egg. 2 tablespoonfuls of water. 1 egg. Flavoring of minced orange or lemon peel. Either grate apples on a tin grater or finely mince them; put the specified quantity into a saucepan with all the other ingredients and stir them over the fire about ten minutes.
This is a stovetop apple filling in the family of fruit curds — closer to an apple butter enriched with egg than to anything poured over a dessert. It comes together in about ten minutes and is meant to be used as a tart or pie filling, or as a spread.
- The hinge: keep it below a simmerOne whole egg in four cups of hot fruit will scramble if the pan gets past a bare simmer. Beat the egg first, temper it with a spoonful of the warm apple, then return it to the pan over low heat and stir constantly.
- Butter size of an eggAbout 2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons. Nineteenth-century books measured butter by eye against familiar objects — a walnut is roughly 1 tablespoon, an egg roughly four.
- Which applesGrated raw apple that breaks down fast is what you want: Bramley, Granny Smith, or any tart cooking apple. A firm modern dessert apple such as Honeycrisp will stay in shreds rather than melting into a cream.
- Grate at the last momentGrated apple browns within minutes. Have the pan and the other ingredients ready before you start, or toss the apple with a little lemon juice as you go.
- Sugar levelTwo cups of sugar to four of apple is very sweet by current taste. A cup to a cup and a quarter gives a filling that still sets and tastes of fruit.
- Ten minutes may not be enoughDepending on the apples, ten minutes may leave the mixture loose. If it is, keep stirring over low heat until a spoon drawn through the pan leaves a track that closes slowly.
- The flavoringMinced peel means zest only — the white pith is bitter. A teaspoon of finely minced or grated lemon or orange zest is right for this quantity.
- Yield and keepingRoughly three cups, enough to fill a 9-inch tart shell or a dozen small ones. Because it contains egg, refrigerate it and use within about four days; it is not a preserve despite the sugar.
Fruit "creams" of this kind sit between the older English fruit fools and the lemon curd that became a staple of Victorian tea tables — sugar, butter and egg cooked with fruit pulp until thick enough to hold a shape. The instruction to grate rather than stew saves time: raw grated apple cooks down in a fraction of the time whole slices need. The orange or lemon peel is doing real work too, covering the flat sweetness that a heavily sugared apple filling otherwise falls into.