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Brown Betty
Put a layer of sweetened apple sauce in a buttered dish, add a few lumps butter, then a layer of cracker crumbs sprinkled with a little cinnamon, then layer of sauce, etc., making the last layer of crumbs; bake in oven, and eat hot with cold, sweetened cream.- Mrs. T. J. Buxton,
A layered apple pudding of the plainest sort — the whole thing hinges on the crumbs staying crisp against the wet fruit. A few of the assumptions in this 1880s version need translating.
- Oven and timeNo temperature is given because the recipe assumes a wood range judged by hand. A moderate oven, 350F, for 35 to 45 minutes will set the layers and brown the top; the surface crumbs should be dry and crisp, not damp.
- Cracker crumbs, not breadcrumbsNineteenth-century "crackers" meant plain unsweetened soda or water crackers, closer to a saltine or a water biscuit than to a graham cracker. Crush them coarse — fine dust turns to paste under the apple sauce.
- The apple sauceThis is a pudding built from an existing stock of sweetened apple sauce rather than raw fruit, which is why no apples, sugar quantity or cooking time appear. Use a thick sauce; a thin or watery one will soak the crumb layers through.
- Butter"A few lumps" is unquantified; about a tablespoon per layer, dotted over the fruit, is a workable modern reading. It is what keeps the crumbs from going sodden, so do not skip it.
- Dish size and yieldNo dish or quantity is given. An 8-inch square or a 1 times-quart baking dish will take about four layers and serve roughly six. Butter it well; the sugar in the sauce will catch at the edges.
- CinnamonSprinkled on the crumb layers rather than stirred into the fruit. Left there, the spice toasts in the oven and reads stronger than it would mixed through.
- Cold sweetened creamNot whipped. Pouring cream, sweetened with a spoonful of sugar and served cold against the hot pudding, is the intended contrast. Heavy cream thinned slightly with milk is about right.
Brown Betty appears in American cookbooks from the middle of the nineteenth century onward, and the name's origin is undocumented — it is generally traced no further than the printed recipes themselves. What is clear is the type: a thrift pudding built from stale crumbs and stored fruit, requiring no pastry, no eggs and no particular skill, which is why versions of it turn up under so many household names. This one, contributed by a Mrs. T. J. Buxton to The Dixie Cook-Book, is unusual in starting from apple sauce already made rather than sliced raw apples. It also calls for cracker crumbs in place of bread.