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Plain Baked Apples
1108. Choose some nice sizeable apples, rather large; prick them very well with a coarse needle to prevent their bursting, lay them nicely in a baking dish, with their stalks upwards. As they are beginning to get warm rub a little butter over each, and, when done, serve either warm or cold, with the addition of some pounded sugar strewed upon them.
APPLES TO STEW OR BAKE FOR FAMILY USE. 1109. Take any moderate-sized good cooking apples, and put them, in a jar, either into a cool oven or water bath with a little water, moist or loaf sugar, and lemon-peel; stew till tender, and serve when cold. The lemon-peel may be either taken out or laid in long narrow strips across the apples when served.
Two related methods sit under one heading: whole apples baked dry in a dish, and apples stewed slowly in a covered jar. Neither gives a temperature or a time, so the numbers below are the practical ones.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. For the baked apples a moderate oven, around 350F, works; large apples take 40 to 55 minutes, until the skins split slightly and a skewer meets no resistance. The "cool oven" for the jar of stewed apples is usually taken to mean something in the region of 250 to 300F, and an hour or more.
- Prick, do not coreThe whole point of the first recipe is that the apple stays intact around its core, so the flesh steams inside its own skin. Piercing the skin in several places with a skewer or trussing needle lets steam escape; skipping it is what makes them burst.
- Choose the right appleA cooking apple that collapses to froth, such as Bramley, suits the stewed version. For baking whole and serving upright with the stalk on, use a firmer apple that holds its shape.
- Pounded sugarSugar crushed fine in a mortar, so caster or superfine sugar. Icing sugar is too powdery and will simply dissolve on the hot skins.
- Moist and loaf sugarMoist sugar is unrefined, roughly today's light brown sugar; loaf sugar was refined white sugar broken from a cone, so ordinary granulated. Either works, with brown giving a darker syrup.
- The jar and the water bathAn earthenware or stoneware jar with a lid, or any ovenproof dish covered tightly. The water bath is a pan of simmering water on the stove with the covered jar standing in it, which keeps the apples below boiling point so they soften without breaking up.
- Lemon peelPare it thinly with no white pith, which turns bitter over a long stew, and cut it into the long narrow strips the recipe calls for. Strips are easier to lift out or arrange on the finished dish than grated zest.
- QuantityAllow one large apple per person for the baked version. The stewed apples keep several days covered in the refrigerator.