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Scalloped Apples
1 small baker's stale loaf 1/4 cup butter 1 quart sliced apples ¼ cup sugar ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg Grated rind and juice of 1½ lemon Cut loaf in halves, remove soft part, and crumb by rubbing through a colander; melt butter and stir in lightly with fork; cover bottom of buttered pudding-dish with crumbs and spread over one-half the apples, sprinkle with one-half sugar, nutmeg, lemon juice, and rind mixed together; repeat cover with remaining crumbs, and bake forty minutes in moderate oven. Cover at first to prevent crumbs browning too rapidly. Serve with sugar and cream.
A crumb-and-apple pudding of the plainest sort, and one that rewards attention to two things: the dryness of the bread and the depth of the dish.
- Moderate ovenSet the oven to 350F. Forty minutes at that heat will soften the apples through if they are sliced thin; thick wedges will still be firm.
- Cover for the first halfThis is the hinge of the recipe. Butter-soaked crumbs on top will darken long before the fruit is tender, so keep the dish covered with a lid or foil for the first 20 to 25 minutes, then uncover to colour.
- A baker's stale loafMeant is a firm white loaf a day or two old, dry enough to grate rather than smear. A modern soft sandwich loaf will pack into paste; use a lean bakery loaf, or dry cut slices in a low oven before crumbing. Rubbing through a colander gives coarse crumbs, which is what you want here.
- Quantities as printedThe sugar and nutmeg figures have lost their fractions in this printing; 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg are the likely readings. The lemon figure is garbled too: half a lemon is as plausible a reading as one and a half.
- A quart of sliced applesMeasured by volume after slicing, this is roughly 1 1/4 lb, or three good-sized apples. A firm cooking apple that holds its shape suits the layering better than a variety that collapses to sauce.
- LayeringCrumbs, half the apples with half the seasoning, the rest of the apples and seasoning, then crumbs on top. Use a shallow dish of about a quart and a half so the fruit is not more than an inch and a half deep.
- Yield and servingServes four to six. "Sugar and cream" means plain heavy cream poured at the table, unwhipped, with a sugar bowl alongside; a spoonful of the juice from the dish over each serving does no harm.
Scalloped dishes in nineteenth-century American cookery meant anything layered with buttered crumbs and baked, savoury or sweet, and the technique was a frugal one: it turned the dry heel of a loaf into the body of a pudding. The nutmeg and lemon rind are the period's standard sweetening of apple: warm spice and citrus peel appear together in apple pies, brown betties and charlottes, and the family resemblance to apple brown betty is close.