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Boston Pudding
Peel and remove the cores from two pounds of cooking-apples and cut them into small pieces; put them in a stewpan with a small piece of stick cinnamon, two or three cloves, and the thinly-pared rind of a large lemon; moisten with a small quantity of water, and stew gently until reduced to a pulp. When cooked sweeten the apples to taste with moist sugar, and rub them through a fine sieve. Beat the yolks of three eggs, and the whites of one with three ounces of warmed butter, a small quantity of grated nutmeg and grated lemon-peel and strained juice of half a lemon; beat the mixture thoroughly. Butter and line the edges of a pie-dish with puff-paste, pour in the mixture and bake in a moderate oven. When cooked, serve either hot or cold.
An apple curd baked in a pastry-edged dish, close to what English cookery calls an apple amber. The recipe leaves one step implied: the beaten egg-and-butter mixture is to be combined with the sieved apple pulp, not baked on its own.
- The hingeLet the apple pulp cool to warm before beating in the eggs, or the yolks will scramble and the filling will be granular rather than smooth. Add the butter while the pulp is still warm enough to melt it, then the eggs last.
- Moist sugarVictorian and Edwardian "moist sugar" is unrefined or partly refined soft sugar, closest to modern light brown sugar. Around 4 to 6 oz will sweeten 2 lb of cooking apples, depending on the fruit.
- The applesTwo pounds is roughly four large Bramleys or six Granny Smiths before peeling and coring. Tart cooking apples that collapse are the point here; dessert apples hold their shape and will not sieve cleanly.
- Rubbing through a sieveA food mill or a coarse sieve and a wooden spoon both work. Sieving also catches the cinnamon stick, cloves and lemon rind, so no need to fish them out beforehand.
- Moderate ovenConventionally taken as around 350F. Bake roughly 35 to 45 minutes, until the centre is set with only a slight wobble and the surface has taken a little colour.
- Pastry at the edges onlyThere is no bottom crust. A band of puff pastry is pressed around the rim of a buttered pie dish, in the old manner, so the filling bakes directly against the dish.
- EggsThree yolks to one white: the extra yolks enrich, and a single white gives enough structure to set the curd without making it spongy. Substituting whole eggs will change the texture.
- YieldA 9-inch pie dish will take it, giving about six servings. Good cold with cream; it firms considerably as it chills.
Baked apple curds of this kind were familiar English puddings in the nineteenth century, often called apple amber; the version with only pastry at the rim avoids the trouble of blind baking. Why the book calls it Boston Pudding is unclear. Its presence among the Waldorf's recipes is a reminder that a grand hotel kitchen also had to produce ordinary domestic desserts. The spicing -- stick cinnamon, a few cloves, pared lemon rind stewed with the fruit and then removed -- infuses the fruit rather than flavouring it with ground spice at the end.