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Apple Pudding
Two peeled and chopped sound apples, two ounces granulated sugar, two eggs, half gill cold milk, two ounces flour, half ounce butter and one teaspoon vanilla essence.
Place the sugar, the yolks of the two eggs, milk, flour and vanilla essence in a bowl; sharply mix with a wooden spoon for five minutes, add the apples and gently mix. Beat up whites of the two eggs to a stiff froth and add to the mixture; lightly stir for half a minute. Lightly butter six individual pudding moulds; evenly divide the preparation into the six moulds, place in a pastry tin, pour in boiling water up to half the height of the moulds and bake in a moderate oven for thirty-five minutes. Remove, unmould and serve with a Sabayon sauce.
A light baked apple batter pudding, cooked in a water bath and turned out. The recipe is written by weight in the European manner, which makes it easy to scale once the units are translated.
- The hinge: fold, don't stirThe whites are the only leavening in the pudding. The base is beaten hard for five minutes to develop it, but once the whites go in the mixture wants half a minute of light folding and no more; the instruction is precise and worth following literally.
- Half a gillA gill is a quarter of a pint. On the imperial pint that is 5 fl oz, so half a gill is about 2 1/2 fl oz; on the American pint it works out at 2 fl oz, or 1/4 cup of milk.
- Ounces by weightTwo ounces sugar is about 55 g, roughly 4 1/2 tablespoons. Two ounces flour is also 55 g, a scant half cup scooped and levelled. Half an ounce of butter is one tablespoon, used only to grease the moulds.
- Moderate oven350F / 175C. The water bath keeps the moulds gentle, so the puddings set rather than souffle up and collapse.
- The moulds and the tinSix "individual pudding moulds" would most likely be dariole moulds or ramekins, and the quantities suggest something in the region of 4 fl oz each. The "pastry tin" is simply a roasting or sheet pan deep enough to hold boiling water halfway up their sides.
- The apples"sound" means unbruised and unblemished. Chopping them small helps keep the fruit suspended in so light a batter. A firm cooking apple holds its shape better than a soft eating variety.
- UnmouldingA short rest out of the water bath, then a thin knife run round the edge before inverting, will help; straight from the oven they are fragile.
- Sabayon sauceSabayon is the French form of Italian zabaglione: egg yolks, sugar and a fortified or white wine whisked over hot water until thick and foamy. Serve it warm and soon after making, as it slackens.
- YieldSix small puddings, which is a modest dessert for six or a generous one for four.
Batter puddings of this kind, where chopped fruit is suspended in a thin flour-and-egg mixture and baked in a bain-marie, sit somewhere between a clafoutis and a souffle pudding, and they were common in hotel and restaurant kitchens of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The water bath and individual moulds answer a service problem: small puddings cook evenly, turn out neatly onto the plate, and can be prepared ahead of the meal. The pairing with sabayon points the same way, since the sauce belongs to the classic French repertoire that international hotel cookery drew on.