(b) Peel, core, and quarter 2-3 lb. small russet apples. Any apples will do that do not break in the boiling, but small ones look better. Put them in a jar with layers of whole ginger, about 2 oz. Make a syrup with ¾ pint water, 1 oz. ginger, and 1½ lb. lump sugar, and pour it boiling over the apples. Let it stand till the next day, then simmer the whole very slowly until the apples are tender and look transparent; take the apples out and drain them, and boil the syrup fast until it is thick. Pour it again over the apples, and when cold bottle.
(c) 4 lb. apples, 1 qt. water, 4 lb. sugar, 2 oz. best essence of ginger. Pare the apples, and cut them in slices as for a pie. As you pare and core them, throw them into a basin of cold water. Boil the sugar and water nearly 15 minutes until it forms a nice syrup; then put in the apples. Do not stir them much. Add the ginger; boil 1 hour till it becomes yellow and clear. Be sure not to let it boil fast.
Apple Pudding.—(a) Make a paste with equal quantities sifted flour and finely chopped suet, a pinch of salt, and a little water. Roll it out thin into a large piece, place this over a well-buttered basin, and push it in so as to line the basin with it, cut it off all round so as to leave enough to fold up; roll out the trimmings to such a size as to cover the top of the basin. Pare, core, and slice a quantity of good sound apples. Put them in the basin with brown sugar to taste, and either some chopped lemon peel, 2 or 3 cloves, or a little grated nutmeg; add a small piece of fresh butter, pack the apples tight in, put on the cover of paste, turn up the edges and press them down, tie a floured pudding cloth over, and put the basin into a saucepanful of boiling water, which should come well over the pudding. Boil 2-3 hours according to size.
(b) Stew 2 lb. apples to a pulp; sweeten to taste while stewing, and when taken off the fire stir in 2 oz. good fresh butter; when cold, add 2 eggs beaten up; butter well the bottom and sides of a pudding dish; strew crumbs of bread 2 in. thick, over the bottom and sides, put in the apples well mixed with the 2 eggs, strew breadcrumbs over the top, and a few tiny bits of butter and white sugar. Bake in a moderate oven, and serve the pudding with cream or custard.
Apple Rings.—(a) Soak apple rings for 12 hours in cold water, when they will be fit for every use in casking apples, and found superior to our English apples, for sauce, puddings, &c., in particular. (J. B. F.)
(b) These cook much nicer and softer if they are soaked overnight in sufficient cold water to cover them, using the same water to stew them with. If this is not convenient, put them in an enamelled saucepan—an iron one turns them black—and nearly cover them with cold water. Put in a small piece of stick cinnamon, and a few cloves: this flavouring seems to suit them better than lemon peel; add sufficient sugar when they begin to simmer, and stew until soft, which should be in ½ hour. When apple rings are stewed, they can be spread on a suet paste and be used for roly-poly puddings, or be eaten with blancmange or boiled rice, or be made into puffs, open tarts, or an apple pasty. For example, line a Yorkshire pudding tin, greased, with short paste, put in a deep layer of stewed apples and cover it with a lid of paste, pinching the edges well between finger and thumb in a crinkled fashion; brush over the top with water, sprinkle castor sugar thickly over, and bake for ½ hour in a moderate oven; turn it carefully out of the tin by placing a flat board on the top of the pasty, and turn the tin bottom upwards, when the pasty will come out of the tin; now place your dish on the bottom of the pasty and turn it over again, which will bring the pasty right side uppermost, and if done carefully it will not break. If any of the sugar falls off, grate some sugar on the bare places. To be eaten either hot or cold. Covered tarts can be made with apple rings in this way: line a shallow tin, or a dinner plate, with a thin paste, spread a layer of stewed apple and cover with a lid of paste—either short or puff—and bake it for 20 minutes; cover with thin icing, made by beating the white of an egg with 1 tablespoonful castor sugar and 1 teaspoonful lemon juice together for 5 minutes with a whisk; spread this icing over the tart with a knife and set it in a cool oven for ¼ hour to harden. These covered tarts can be made to look pretty by spreading the white icing evenly over the crust, letting it harden 5 minutes in the oven; colour a small portion of the icing with cochineal, and put it round the edge in little pink buttons, setting the tart back in the oven for the rest of the time to harden. Apple rings can be cooked nicely in deep tarts; but, unless there is a good bottom heat to the oven, they do not cook sufficiently soft in the same time it takes to bake the crust properly, and it is best to have them stewed first.
Apple Roly-Poly.—Make a suet crust, roll it out thinly, put slices of apple all over it, sift over the apple sugar and the grated peel of a lemon or powdered cinnamon; roll it up, pinch the ends very securely; boil it in a cloth 1½ hour, and, if large, 2 hours.
Apple Snow.—(a) Pare and core 6 good-sized apples, steam them in 2 tablespoonfuls water, with a little lemon peel, till quite soft. Add ¼ lb. finely sifted white sugar, and the white of 1 quite fresh egg. Beat it well for ¾ hour without stopping, and serve as you please. It looks best in custard glasses heaped up.
(b) Take ¼ lb. of the pulp of roasted apples, ¼ lb. powdered loaf sugar, the juice of half a lemon, some of the rind rubbed into 2 lumps of sugar and then pounded, and the whites of 3 or 4 eggs. Whip all together for an hour, till it is like whipped cream, and drop it lightly into a glass dish.
(c) Stew some apples till tender, sweeten to taste, mash them up, and place them in the centre of a dish; round and over them place a layer of boiled rice (dry); whisk the whites of 3 or 4 eggs until quite light and frothy; cover the whole with this froth, sprinkle over it powdered sugar, colouring a little of it with cochineal.