APPLE BROWN BETTY–AN EASY HISTORICAL DESSERT- by Cheryl Pierson

If you’ve ever had Apple Brown Betty, please raise your hand! If you’ve ever HEARD of Apple Brown Betty, please raise your hand! Well, my hand only came up one time…

I remember my mom mentioning it a time or two, but I don’t recall her ever making it. I’ve never had it, but I’m going to rectify that situation tonight or tomorrow—sometime this weekend!

This is a dessert that, by all accounts, gives us all the taste of apple pie but with no crust. Instead of crust, you get………ice cream on top AND caramel syrup if you so desire!

This dessert dates back to colonial times, though most sources say it was mentioned in print for the first time by name in 1864. It’s supposed to be easy to make, and doesn’t require a lot of special ingredients—so it’s hard to imagine that I’ve lived this long and never have had it. I can tell by looking at the picture and the recipe my hubby is going to love it—he’s an apple pie fanatic. For those of you who are NOT apple dessert lovers, this recipe can also be made with pears or berries as a variation!

I found this recipe and picture on Cooking Professionally dot com. They have a wonderful newsletter you can also sign up for! There are other variations on this classic recipe, but this is the one that looks the best to me! By the way, I bought some oranges the other day, but have no orange juice since we don’t drink it anymore, and one of the recipes I looked at mentioned using the juice of one orange, or about ¼ of a cup—which is what this recipe calls for as well. Glad I bought those oranges!

APPLE BROWN BETTY

Ingredients:

4 cups apples, thinly sliced

1/4 cup orange juice

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg salt, to taste

1/2 cup butter, cold, sliced into cubes

vanilla ice cream, optional, for serving

caramel sauce, optional, for serving

 

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. Grease a 9-inch pie pan.
  3. Spread the sliced apples in the bottom of the pie pan.
  4. Drizzle the orange juice over the apples. This helps prevent the apples from browning.
  5. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
  6. Add in the butter and mix until it resembles coarse crumbs. Try not to get the butter too warm in this stage, as that can change the texture of the crust later on.
  7. Sprinkle the crumb mixture over the apples in an even layer.
  8. Bake until the apples are bubbly and cooked through and the crust is crisp, for about 45 minutes.
  9. Let cool for a few minutes and serve warm, with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce if desired.

 

Y’all know I’m the Caramel Sauce Goddess—no, not MAKING it, but EATING it! I found a recipe for that, too, at bellyful dot net, though I have not tried it—it looks easy enough and I’m hoping it will be!

CARAMEL SAUCE

Prep Time: 2 mins

Cook Time: 10 mins

Cool down: 10 mins

Total Time: 22 mins

Servings: 10 (2 tablespoons per serving – 1 1/4 cups total)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • pinch of salt

Instructions

  1. Add the sugar and water to a 3-quart heavy bottomed saucepan; stir a little so it sits in a flat, even layer.
  2. Warm pot over medium heat and cook until the sugar dissolves, turns clear, and starts to bubble. (It will be cloudy at first, but will turn into a clear, bubbling liquid.) This takes about 3-4 minutes.
  3. (At this point, do not stir again – simply allow to bubble, swirl the saucepan occasionally and brush down the sides of the pan, as needed, to prevent crystallization.)
  4. Sugar will form clumps, but continue swirling and cooking until the mixture thickens and turns a deep amber color like honey (this can take anywhere from 8-12 minutes), keeping a watchful eye so the mixture doesn’t burn.
  5. Carefully add the butter and whisk until completely melted. (The caramel will bubble up rapidly, so be careful and continue to whisk.)
  6. Remove the saucepan from the heat and slowly pour in the cream, whisking continuously until all of the cream has been incorporated.
  7. Whisk in the vanilla and salt.
  8. Set aside to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
  9. Then pour into a lidded glass jar and allow to cool completely. (It will thicken as it cools.)

 

Refrigerate up to three weeks—you can heat it up in the microwave to use after the Apple Brown Betty is gone if you want…more ice cream!

Have you ever had Apple Brown Betty? Inquiring minds want to know—what does your recipe look like in comparison to this one? It’s been said this was a favorite of President Ronald Reagan.

I have a feeling I know what my heroine in my WIP is going to be whipping up for a tasty dessert when it’s time for a meal!

The Traditional Christmas Fruitcake – Western-Style

I don’t know about you, but when I think of fruitcake, I think of the currant version, with almost sickly-sweet candies instead of real fruit, soaked in enough sugar to make a person vibrate out of existence if they eat a slice.

So, when I was writing a scene for an upcoming book, A Sugar Plum Christmas, and I needed a good, honest-to-goodness pioneer sweet…fruitcake really didn’t top my list. Does it top anyone’s? I was skeptical until I started watching videos on how these things were made.

traditional fruitcake

Enter the Way-Back machine…

Firstly, historians aren’t wholly certain how far back fruitcakes go (is that really a surprise?). They know cakes like these were used as rations for the Roman Army, right around 27 BC. For all we know, those are still in existence. I kid…sort of.

Even then, the Romans knew that soaking the fruit, and the cake when it was complete, in alcohol, would make it safe for eating much longer than other breads. Plus, it’s calorie dense. I’ll skip the joke where I say it’s pretty dense in other ways…that’s just too easy.

From the Roman Empire to a Rancher’s Table

Well, like the Roman Empire, the Old West didn’t have many options for keeping food, especially sweets that weren’t hard candy, from spoiling. Age-old methods are tried and true and fruitcakes became the dessert of choice for Victorian homes during Christmas.

The cake was often made three months ahead of time, using the berries and fruits collected from the year before to make room for ones just collected. They would be soaked in whatever alcohol was readily available. Despite the feeling about alcohol now, feelings were different then, even children occasionally drank and women often used alcohol for homemade tinctures, so the ingredients were often right on hand.

fruitcake ingredients

Wherefore Art Thou, Orange

With the advent of the Transcontinental Railway in the 1880s, the one ingredient that might have been hard to come by, suddenly wasn’t. Oranges. The recipe calls for the peel of one orange and I can imagine that, prior to the availability caused by the railroad, that made the fruitcake taste much differently. Perhaps they found a way to dry and save the peels when they were more readily available during the summer months. I couldn’t find any site to confirm or deny that.

What’s interesting to me is that orange peel is one of the few items in a fruitcake recipe that doesn’t change. The spices seem to vary, the amount of flour fluxuates, what type of alcohol doesn’t matter, the types of fruits and nuts are loosey-goosey. But the orange peel is a staple.

Recipe Time

My mother-in-law has a recipe for fruitcake from her mother and she and her sisters have not shared it yet, but they do get together annually (barring weather or the illness that shall not be named) to make one or three. I do not have that recipe, but I hear it’s pretty good. The cake is usually gone by the time I hear about it. However, here is a fabulous recipe, that I might even try:
Cite: The Old Farmer’s Almanac

INGREDIENTS

  • 4-5 pounds fruit and nuts:
  • 1 pound dark raisins
  • 1 pound white raisins
  • 1/2 pound currants
  • 1/2 pound candied cherries
  • 1/2 pound candied pineapple
  • 1/4 pound candied citron
  • 2 ounces candied orange peel
  • 2 ounces candied lemon peel
  • 1/4 pound blanched whole almonds
  • 1/4 pound whole pecans
  • 1/2 cup Madeira
  • 1/2 cup dark rum
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon each: cinnamon, cloves, mace, and allspice
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 5 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract

 

INSTRUCTIONS

Put the raisins and currants in a large bowl, add the Madeira and the rum and let stand, covered, overnight. Then add the candied fruits and mix well. Sift the spices and soda with 1-½ cups of the flour, combine the remaining flour with the nuts. Add all to the fruits, mixing lightly.

In another large bowl, beat the butter until light and cream in the sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and almond extract. Add the fruit and nut mixture to the batter and stir well. Turn the batter into a well greased tube or spring mold pan. A 10-inch pan will do for this 5-½ pound cake, or two smaller cakes may be made. Bake the large cake in an oven preheated to 275 degrees F for 3-½ to 4 hours, or until a cake tester inserted near the center of the cake comes out dry. The smaller cakes will take half the time.

Let the cake stand in the pan on a wire rack for half an hour, run a knife around the pan, if a spring mold, loosen it and remove the cake gently to a piece of heavy aluminum foil large enough to enclose it completely. Fold the closing double to seal the cake completely. Once or twice before Christmas, open the foil and pour a little additional rum or wine on the cake.

When ready to use, decorate the top of the cake with a wreath of pecans and maraschino cherries and thin slices of candied fruit.