Apples in Bloom

A whole-poached apple dessert that depends entirely on the skin staining the flesh pink before it comes off. Everything else is a reduction and a sauce.

• The hinge: keep the skins on until the endThe pink comes from anthocyanins in the red peel bleeding into the cooked flesh. Peel before cooking and you get an ordinary pale stewed apple; the instruction to remove the skins carefully after cooking is the whole point of the dish.
• Choose the apple for its skinYou want a deeply red-skinned variety that holds its shape in cooking, such as Rome Beauty or Jonathan. Green- or yellow-skinned apples give no color, and soft varieties such as McIntosh collapse before they are cooked through.
• Water half surrounding themThe apples sit in water coming only halfway up, so use a wide pan that holds the eight in one layer, and turn them often, as the recipe directs, so both halves cook and color evenly.
• Timing"Until soft" is likely to run something like 20 to 30 minutes depending on size and variety; note that the recipe keeps the water boiling rather than at a simmer. Test with a skewer and stop while the apples still hold their shape.
• CoringThe original leaves the apples whole and uncored, which is how they keep their form. Serve with a knife and fork, or core them from the blossom end with an apple corer before poaching if you want them spoonable.
• The syrupThe poaching liquid plus a cup of sugar is reduced to one cup; how long that takes depends entirely on how much water was used, and a wide pan will speed it. Reduce much past a cup and you will have a thicker, stickier syrup once cold.
• Cream Sauce I or IIThese are cross-references to the sauce section of the same book; look up the two recipes there before substituting anything for them.
• Yield and servingEight apples, enough for eight if one each. The recipe has the syrup cooled before it goes over the apples, so this is a cold dessert; chilling apples and syrup separately and combining shortly before serving keeps the color glossy.