Apple Pudding Pie

One of the great pleasures in cooking from historical sources is in unexpectedly finding a recipe that is so delicious that it can be added to the restricted and somewhat repetitive range that tend to form the domestic pantheon of food that is cooked on a daily basis. The truth is that for all the hundreds of cookbooks I have read and the thousands of recipes that I have considered, in reality I still cook a core of about 30 dishes on a regular basis. I suspect that this behavior is common to most people. The following recipe comes from a very tatty and unbound book that I was lucky enough to come across in a junk store. Published anonymously in 1813 as “Domestic Management; or, the Healthful Cookery-Book” by “A Lady”, it is fairly typical for the period, a mix of domestic advise, cookery and stern moral instruction. More unusually though, although many of the recipes are obviously copied from other sources (as is also rather typical in this period), the choice of recipes is obviously very personal. A recipe for a 17^th century Whitepot rubs shoulders with the very new  fruit “Charlotte”, the list of garden vegetables and herbs look very modern and is copied from a French source, while the very British meat pie and pudding section contains medieval sweet meat pies that had all but disappeared from mainstream cookbooks during the previous 150 years.

Apple Pudding with Cream

Pare and grate three or four apples according to the size, but they must be pretty large. Add to them a quarter of a pound of Naples biscuits grated, a little nutmeg, a pint of cream, sugar to taste, and ten eggs, with but half the whites, well beaten with a little salt. Bake it with a crust round the edge of the dish for an hour. Sift it over with powdered sugar when done.

This type of English pudding is more similar to a tart then the archetypal British boiled suet pudding. They became extremely popular during the 18^th century and form the basis of many similar desserts. In texture they are quite cake like although rather moist. Often referred to as “Pudding Pies”, perhaps the most famous extant example is known as a “Kentish Pudding Pie”. The direction to line the edge of the pie dish with pastry may seem rather odd, but there is a very practical reason for it. Due to the folding in of beaten egg whites, the mixture raises dramatically in the oven. The edging of puff pastry (puff pastry was commonly used to line and edge pies and tarts in this period) also rises during the baking and prevents the filling from spilling over the side of the dish.  Naples biscuits, also know as Savoy/ Savoiardi or sponge fingers are also commonly used as a base in similar recipes (although they now are more commonly used in trifles or tiramisu rather then baked recipes). The variety of apple I used here is a Bramley’s [seedling], perhaps the most popular cooking apple in the UK, being rather tart and readily cooking to a pulp. However, I suspect that a mix of these and the more aromatic Gravenstein would be even better.

Comments

[Helen]

I am rather envious of you having come across this book in a junk store! I am writing on it for my masters degree. The author's real name is Annabella Plumptre.
Just thought you might be interested!

[Adam Balic]

That is wonderful Helen, I have never been able to find anything about the book's author.

What is your masters topic?