No. 2999

Apples with Butter

Pommes au Beurre

Cut four fine russet apples in quarters; peel and pare them, and range in a well-buttered sautoir; moisten with a few spoonfuls of twenty degree syrup, and the juice of a lemon; cover over with a well-buttered paper, and finish cooking in a slow oven. When done dress on a dish in a circle, and add to the sautoir a little apricot marmalade (No. 3675) with some Madeira wine; boil up with the lid on; strain the sauce through a tammy, and pour it over the apples.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A short, elegant recipe that depends almost entirely on the apple holding its shape. Ranhofer assumes a professional kitchen, so several of his terms and quantities need translating.

The hinge: low heat, coveredThe buttered paper laid directly on the fruit is a cartouche; it traps steam so the quarters cook through without browning or collapsing. Combined with a genuinely slow oven, that is what keeps the pieces intact enough to stand in a circle.
"Slow oven"Ranhofer gives no temperature or time. A slow oven of the period corresponds to roughly 275-325F. Much hotter and the syrup reduces too fast and the apples brown at the edges before the centres soften; expect somewhere in the region of 30-45 minutes depending on the variety.
Twenty degree syrupA Baume reading, the standard 19th-century way of specifying sugar density. Twenty degrees is roughly 36 percent sugar by weight — about 1 cup sugar dissolved in 1 1/2 cups water and brought to a boil, then cooled. Only a few spoonfuls are needed here.
SautoirA shallow straight-sided pan, not a deep casserole. Use something just large enough to hold the sixteen quarters in a single layer, and one that can go from oven to stovetop, since the sauce is finished in it.
"Peel and pare"Ranhofer means peel, core and trim the quarters neatly — the cut faces should be smooth so the pieces look uniform when dressed. Russets are firm and slightly dry, which is presumably why he calls for them; any firm baking apple that holds shape works, and mealy dessert apples do not.
Apricot marmaladeNot marmalade in the citrus sense but the sieved apricot puree used throughout The Epicurean as a glaze base. Strained apricot jam thinned slightly is the practical equivalent; two or three tablespoons with a tablespoon or two of Madeira is enough for four apples.
TammyA worsted straining cloth. A fine chinois or a sieve lined with muslin gives the same result — the point is a sauce with no fibre or skin in it.
YieldFour apples serve four as a hot entremets, or two if it is standing in as dessert on its own. Serve warm; the sauce sets tacky as it cools.

A Little History

This is entry 2999 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled from his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. Its cross-references — to apricot marmalade at No. 3675 — show how the book was meant to be used: not as a collection of standalone recipes but as a professional system, where a line like "twenty degree syrup" is a specification a trained cook simply looks up or knows by hydrometer. Pommes au beurre belongs to the long French repertoire of hot entremets, generally understood as the sweet or savoury dishes served between the roast and the dessert proper, though practice varied, and it is essentially a restraint exercise: whole quarters of fruit, butter, a light syrup, and a glaze lifted with Madeira. Russets were among the standard American keeping apples of the period, dense and slow to break down, which is exactly what a dish arranged in a circle on a platter requires.