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Apple Pralinees
Peel and core six sound apples. Have four ounces granulated sugar and a pint and a half water in a saucepan, and as soon as it comes to a boil add the apples and cook for fifteen minutes, turning them with a skimmer once in a while. Remove, drain on a cloth and let cool off. Plunge two ounces of almonds in a pint of boiling water for two minutes. Drain and peel, then finely chop them; place in a copper basin with three ounces granulated sugar, half gill of water and a teaspoon vanilla essence. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon for a half minute. Place the basin on a brisk fire and continually stir until of a nice brown colour, then remove from the fire. Arrange the apples on a dish, fill their cavities with currant jelly, evenly spread the almond preparation over the apples and let cool off. Trim off any superfluous preparation at the base of the apples and serve.
A poached apple dessert finished with a hot almond praline, from the era when a copper basin and a brisk fire were assumed. The whole thing hinges on speed at the end: caramelized nut mixture sets within seconds of leaving the heat.
- Weights in cupsFour ounces granulated sugar is about half a cup; three ounces is a scant half cup. Two ounces of almonds is roughly a third of a cup of whole nuts.
- Half a gillA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz), so half a gill is 2 fl oz — a quarter cup, or four tablespoons. That is all the water the praline mixture needs; it is there only to dissolve the sugar before it colours.
- Copper basinAny heavy, light-coloured pan will do; the point of copper was even heat and the ability to see the colour of the sugar. Avoid dark nonstick, where you cannot judge the browning.
- Brisk fireMedium-high heat. The sugar and nuts go from pale to "nice brown" quickly and then to burnt just as quickly, so pull the pan the moment the colour is right and keep stirring off the heat.
- The hinge: work fastCaramelized almond sugar stiffens rapidly as it cools and soon becomes unspreadable. Have the apples already arranged and filled with jelly before the praline colours, then spread immediately with an oiled spoon or spatula.
- Poaching timeFifteen minutes in barely sweetened syrup may overcook softer modern dessert apples. Use a firm variety that holds shape — Braeburn, Golden Delicious, Boskoop — and start testing with a skewer at eight minutes; they should be tender but still standing.
- The syrup is thin on purposeFour ounces of sugar to a pint and a half of water is a light poaching liquid, not a candying syrup. Keep it at a bare simmer so the apples do not knock about, and turn them once or twice as directed.
- Vanilla essenceModern vanilla extract is alcohol-based and much of it will flash off in the hot sugar. Add it with the water as written rather than at the end, and accept that the flavour is a background note.
- YieldSix apples, one per person. Serve at room temperature the day they are made — the praline shell softens and weeps once refrigerated.
"Praline" in French usage means a nut cooked in sugar until the sugar caramelizes and coats it, and a pralin — those nuts crushed to a coarse powder or paste — was a standard pastry-kitchen preparation for finishing creams, ices and fruit. That is what is happening here: not the soft Louisiana pecan candy that took the same name, but a brittle almond caramel used as a coating. Whole poached apples stuffed with jam and dressed up with a nut or crumb topping appear on hotel and restaurant dessert lists of the period, cheap in materials and made to look considered. The odd spelling "pralinees" and the assumption that a cook has a copper basin and a wooden spoon at hand are typical of The International Cook Book, compiled by Alexander Filippini, who worked at Delmonico's in New York and wrote for professionals as much as for households.