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Hot Apple Toddy
Place in a large glass half a medium-sized, well-baked apple, half tablespoon sugar, a wine glass old apple jack, dissolve well with a little hot water, fill up with hot water, mix well together, grate a little nutmeg on top and serve with spoon.
TO CLEAN AND PREPARE SULTANA CURRANTS AND RAISINS FOR PASTRY Procure ten pounds currants or Sultana raisins, lay on table and, should they be damp, dredge a little flour over to prevent adhering to the hands. Briskly rub, place on a fine wire sieve and shake well for three minutes, so as to have them completely free from flour and stalks. Lay sieve with fruits in a large dishpan, fill up to level of sieve with hot water, stir well with skimmer for five minutes, lift up sieve and let drain for four minutes. Cover an iron pan with a sheet of brown paper, drop contents over, well spread out, then set in a rather slow oven for ten minutes. Remove, lay in warmest place on kitchen shelf and let dry for fully two days. Lay on a table and carefully remove stones, sand, stalks, or any other element except the perfect fruit, place in a tin box, tightly cover, keep in a cool place and use as required. [The above important articles are so frequently required for pastry purposes, etc., that I consider it advisable to prepare a larger amount than required for one occasion, as they will remain in good condition for six months when properly kept.] SPONGE FOR FRENCH BREAD (LEVAIN) Sift on table two pounds best quality thoroughly ripe flour, place half in a bowl sufficiently large to hold six or seven quarts and carefully make a fountain in centre of it. Place a half-ounce cake very fresh, firm, cold compressed yeast in bowl, pour over a half pint lukewarm water and thoroughly dissolve with hand for two and a half minutes. Pour into fountain, mix a little, gradually incorporate flour for five minutes and sharply knead all well together for six minutes. Cover bowl with a dry cloth, then lay vessel in a warm place of 80 degrees temperature to rise during the night (or at least two and a half to three hours) without touching it. The sponge will then have risen to double size, fallen, risen again, and be in proper condition for dough.
N. B. In using flour for making any kind of bread always remember never to employ flour when cold or warm-that is to say, it should be in a place of 60 degrees temperature at least twelve hours before using it.
The page runs three entries together: the toddy itself, a method for cleaning dried fruit in bulk, and a French bread sponge. The toddy is the only one you can make in five minutes; the other two are working-kitchen procedures scaled for a professional larder.
- A wine glassIn period bar and cookery usage a wine glass is a measure, not the size of a modern stemmed glass; it is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, though usage varied. Use roughly 2 oz (60 ml) of spirit for one drink.
- Apple jackApplejack is American apple brandy. Bottled-in-bond apple brandy is the closest thing to the "old apple jack" meant here; blended applejack sold today is largely neutral grain spirit with apple brandy in it, and makes a much thinner drink. Calvados works as well.
- The baked appleBake the apple whole beforehand until it collapses — 375F for 45 minutes or so — and use half, skin slipped off, per glass. The soft pulp is what gives the drink body; a raw apple slice does nothing. A firm baking variety holds up best.
- Dissolve, then fillThe instruction to dissolve the sugar and apple with a little hot water before topping up is the hinge. Mash the pulp, sugar and spirit into a smooth base first, or the apple sits in a lump at the bottom and the drink tastes only of hot brandy.
- Warm the glassBoiling water into a cold thick glass is a real risk. Rinse the glass with hot water first, and use water just off the boil rather than at a rolling boil, which drives off the spirit's aroma.
- "Rather slow oven" for the fruitRead this as about 300F. Ten minutes there only takes the surface water off; the two days on a warm shelf do the actual drying, which is why the fruit keeps.
- Ten pounds of currantsThe quantity is a bulk one, and the author's own note explains it: he prefers to prepare more than is needed for one occasion, since the fruit keeps six months when properly stored. Scale down freely -- the washing, brief oven, long air-dry and airtight tin sequence works at one pound as well as ten.
- Yeast and "ripe" flourHalf an ounce of compressed yeast is about 14 g fresh, roughly 1 1/2 teaspoons of instant dried yeast for 2 lb of flour. "Ripe" flour means flour that has been stored and aged, and the note about holding it at 60F for twelve hours is simply about keeping the dough temperature predictable.
- YieldThe toddy makes one large drink.
The word toddy comes into English from Hindi tārī, the fermented sap of the palm, and by the eighteenth century had been transferred in Britain and America to any mixture of spirit, sugar, hot water and spice. Applejack is the American branch of the family: apple brandy has been distilled in the mid-Atlantic colonies since the seventeenth century, and New Jersey's output was well enough known to have earned the nickname "Jersey lightning." Hot apple toddy built on baked apple rather than plain spirit appears in nineteenth-century American bar books and was associated with hotel bars and clubs. Its appearance in a professional cookbook, wedged between a fruit-cleaning routine and a bread sponge, is a reminder that the hotel chef of the period was expected to know the service side of the house as well as the range.