William Kitchiner, on Making ‘Nottingham Pudding’

“Peel six good apples, take out the core with the point of a small knife, or an apple corer, if you have one, but be sure to leave the apples whole, fill up where you took the core from with sugar, place them in a pye-dish, and pour over them a nice light batter, prepared as for Batter Pudding, and bake an hour in a moderate oven.“

William Kitchiner, The Cook’s Oracle (1823)

Here’s another (see last week’s ‘Boston Apple Pudding‘ post) quick and easy apple recipe from the 1823 London edition of William Kitchener’s The Cook’s Oracle. And, in case you’re unsure what constitutes a “nice, light batter“, here is Mr Kitchiner’s recipe for said ‘Batter Pudding’, from the same volume:

“Take six ounces of fine flour, a little salt and three eggs, beat up well with a little milk, added by degrees till the batter is quite smooth, make it the thickness of cream, put into a buttered pye-dish, and bake three quarters of an hour, or into a buttered and floured basin tied over tight with a cloth, boil one and a half or two hours.”

That’s right. ‘Nottingham Pudding’ is toad-in-the-hole with apples instead of sausages. And yes, I do know exactly what you’re thinking, because I just thought it too: “Hey, what if you made a Nottingham Pudding made with apples and sausages?!?” Or even, as my boss suggested when I mentioned this one to her the other day, sausages in apples; big, sharp cooking apples, cored and stuffed with sausage meat and baked in a batter pudding…

Do please let me know if you decide to make a ‘Nottingham Pudding’, or a ‘Nottingham-Toad-in-the-Hole’, or whatever you think the variant with the sausage-stuffed apples should be called, either by leaving a comment below, or by emailing me with your notes and photos. I’d really love to know how you get on.