Miss Beecher’s 1848 Recipe for ‘An Apple Lemon Pudding’
“Six spoonfuls of grated, or of cooked and strained apple. Three lemons, pulp, rind, and juice, all grated. Half a pound of melted butter. Sugar to the taste. Seven eggs, well beaten.
Mix and bake with or without paste. It can be made still plainer by using nine spoonfuls of apple, one lemon, two thirds of a cup full of butter, and three eggs.”
Catherine Esther Beecher, Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt-book 3rd edition (1848)
This nineteenth century recipe, from Catherine Esther Beecher (that’s clearly Miss Beecher to the likes of you and I), is about as simple as it gets. Mix grated apple and lemon with half a pound (226g) of melted butter and seven well beaten eggs – based on what I’ve seen on various YouTube cookery channels, the butter will need to cool down somewhat, and the eggs added gradually, to avoid scrambling them as they go in – and a bit of sugar to taste. Then bake the mixture, either in a pastry case or not.
Except, of course, that there’s no mention of how long to bake the thing for, or how hot the oven should be. Looking at a modern egg custard recipe – which seems similar, just swapping the melted butter for a blend of milk and double cream, and leaving out the grated fruit – it seems 45-50 mins, or “until just set with a slight wobble in the centre”, at about 150°C (300°F) / 130°C (266°F) fan / gas 2 in a bain marie setup should probably just about do it.
I really like the sound of this one, any my beloved does loves a properly lemony pudding. I suspect I’ll be giving this one a go before too long.
How about you? Do you like the sound of Miss Beecher’s apple and lemon pudding? Do you feel inspired to try it out? Or do you already have something similar in your culinary repertoire? Please do let me know if so, via the comments.
Oh, this one does sound good. Might do a tart version. A sort of apple tarte au citron but more buttery. Yum.
Please do let me know how you get on. I’m wondering if I can use your chestnut flour recipe, but I’m not sure about blind-baking first…
You would need to blind-bake the pastry case first. Because you are cooking the custard at a relatively low temperature, you could fully pre-bake the case, say 15 minutes on medium high heat (10 minutes with parchment and beads, 5 mins with parchment & beads removed). It’s surprising how pre-baked pastry cases can handle a long bake once the filling is in.
Thank you very much indeed! I think I’ll try for a pastry-case version next time I give it a go.