Blackcaps

Ingredients

• a dozen of good pippins
• a very little water
• some loaf sugar

Method

1. 1

   Cut the pippins in halves and take out the cores.

2. 2

   Place them on a Mazarine dish with the skins on, cut side downwards.

3. 3

   Add a little water, scrape on some loaf sugar, and put them in a hot oven until the skins are burnt black and the apples tender.

4. 4

   Serve on plates strewed with sugar.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine (1886) by William Carew Hazlitt, page 27. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

blackcaps (apples baked in their skins) ; to make a Wood Street cake ; to make Shrewsbury cakes; to dress a leg of mutton like a gammon of bacon; to dress eggs a la Augemotte ; to make a dish of quak- ing pudding of several colours ; to make an Italian pudding, and to make an Olio. The eye seems to meet for the first time with hasty pudding, plum-porridge (an experiment to- ward the solidification of the older plum- broth), rolled beef-steaks, samphire, hedge- hog cream (so called from its shape, currants being used for the eyes, and cut almonds for the bristles), cocks’-combs, orange, spinach and bean tarts, custards in cups (the 1723 book talks of jellies served on china plates), and lastly, jam — the real jam of these days, made to last, as we are told, the whole year. There is an excellent prescription for making elder- berry wine, besides, in which Malaga raisins are to be largely used. “In one year,” says our chef, “ it will be as good and as pleasant as French wine.” Let us extract the way “to make Black- 86 Cookery Books. caps ” : — “ Take a dozen of good pippins, cut them in halves, and take out the cores ; then place them on a right Mazarine dish with the skins on, the cut side downwards ; put to them a very little water, scrape on them some loaf sugar

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.