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Puddings (II)
Mrs. Upham.
APPLE FLOAT.-A pint of stewed, well-mashed apples, the whites of three eggs beaten to a stiff froth, four large tablespoonsful of sugar; then add the apples and sugar alternately, a spoonful of each, and beat all together until it stands up perfectly stiff; it will swell immensely. Serve this in saucers on a custard made of the yolks of the eggs, one pint of milk, two tablespoonsful of sugar, and flavour with vanilla.
APPLE MERINGUE. - Prepare a pudding dish two-thirds full of nice sour apples, add one and one-half cups of water, and one cup of brown sugar, and some salt. Cover closely, and let them simmer in the oven until done to a mash. Beat the whites of five eggs, one cup of sugar, and the juice of a lemon, until they are a stiff froth; pour over the apples and set in the oven to brown. Peaches or other canned fruits are very nice. The yolks of the eggs make a rich custard if beaten and stirred into a quart of boiling milk. Sweeten, season, and pour over it.
Two apple desserts built on the same economy: whites for the froth, yolks for the custard poured underneath. Neither is difficult, but both depend on how you handle the eggs.
- The raw whites in Apple FloatThe float is never cooked — three whites are beaten stiff, folded with sugar and cold stewed apple, and served straight away. If you are serving anyone very young, elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised, use pasteurized egg whites; otherwise the dish is exactly as safe as any mousse made with raw white.
- Beat the whites first, then alternateThe hinge of the float is adding apple and sugar a spoonful at a time to already-stiff whites and continuing to beat. Dumping the pint of apple in at once deflates the foam and you get slush instead of something that "stands up perfectly stiff."
- Sour apples"Nice sour apples" means a cooking apple that collapses — Bramley, Granny Smith, Rhode Island Greening. Modern dessert apples such as Gala or Fuji hold their shape and are too sweet against a cup of brown sugar.
- Oven temperaturesThe recipe gives no heat level, only "simmer in the oven" and "set in the oven to brown." A moderate oven, around 325-350F, will bring the covered apples to a mash in something like 45 minutes to an hour depending on the depth of the dish; 350F for 12-15 minutes is usually enough to colour the meringue, and a hotter oven risks the meringue weeping.
- Pudding dish sizeThe recipe does not say how big the dish is. If you assume something around 2 quarts, "two-thirds full" would take roughly 2 to 2 1/2 lb of peeled, sliced apples, and five whites with a cup of sugar would make a generous meringue for that surface.
- The custards need careFor the float's custard, whisk the yolks with the sugar, temper in the scalded milk, and cook over low heat to about 175F, stirring, until it coats a spoon. The meringue recipe's instruction to stir yolks straight into a quart of boiling milk can curdle them unless you go very slowly with constant stirring; tempering them in off the heat is safer.
- Canned fruit substitutionWhere the original suggests peaches or other canned fruit, drain them well. Syrup left in the dish thins the base and the meringue slides.
- YieldThe float serves four to six in saucers, as directed; the meringue, six to eight.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in the 1870s from recipes contributed by named women — here Mrs. Upham. Apple float belongs to a family of frothed fruit desserts that English and American cookbooks also called apple snow, and which were popular through the nineteenth century. The pairing of the two recipes shows the era's thrift plainly: whites go into the froth, yolks into a custard poured underneath, and nothing is wasted. Sour cooking apples were a cheap winter fruit in the northern states, kept in barrels in the cellar, and the alternative of "canned fruits" reflects a period when home canning was established enough to name in passing.