Heirloom pudding: apple charlotte

My garden apple tree has yielded its best, and there are only a few fruit left hanging. Time to make one of my favourite-ever puddings, made by my mum from a recipe in her 1960s Good Housekeeping recipe book: apple charlotte. Unlike most charlotte recipes, it's not made with whole slices of bread but with a breadcrumb/sugar/suet mixture, and it's irresistible. The only other cookery book that has anything similar is Katie Stewart's Times Cookery Book, but Katie's is a bit more fancy and includes golden syrup. So I'll stick to the original.

I've no idea what variety of apple my tree is, but they're eaters and have a lovely sweetness.

And they have a slight rose blush in the flesh nearest the skin. For the charlotte, if I'm using eaters I pre-cook them slightly tossed in a little sugar and lemon juice. If I'm using cookers, I just slice them and use them straight away as they don't need any help beforehand to cook down to a sweet softness in the oven. Next, make your crumb mix: 3oz white breadcrumbs, 2 oz suet, 3-5 oz demerara sugar and the zest of a lemon for every pound of apples. (The original recipe is pre-metric.)

Gently spoon through the mixture to combine.

Then start making layers in a buttered pudding bowl: the quantities I use give one layer of apple, followed by a layer of crumb, then another layer of apple followed by a final layer of crumb. Dot with butter. Put in an oven at gas mark 4 for around 45 mins, or until the top is golden and crusty. The smell is fabulous.

Serve with double cream - or in my fortunate case, the last of a tub of clotted cream. It's just as good as left-overs over the next couple of days.

I'm at a loss to know why a pud this good and this frugal is so little known. I must try making it with veggie suet to see if that's as good.

Old books and camp tales

A post by Fiona over at The Frugal Cook got me musing about the lure and value of old cookery books. I love them - I haunt the local Oxfam bookshop, and last week bagged The Moosewood Cookbook, which I'd wanted for some time. One of my favourite old books is my mother's copy of Good Housekeeping, circa 1957 (the pic is the baking version of similar vintage). My mother didn't own many cookery books - no money for that sort of thing - but this one was closest to being her bible. At the moment it's up in Anglesey, so I can't check this out, but I'm fairly sure her recipes for liver casserole, kedgeree, and her many cakes, came from Good Housekeeping. And my favourite pudding recipe comes from this tome: apple charlotte made not with bread but with a breadcrumb, suet and sugar mix. I'd never seen this recipe anywhere else until quite recently, when I saw it in a (second-hand) Katie Stewart book.
I used to love looking at the adverts in the GHK book - many for kitchen appliances that even ten years later were looking hopelessly outdated. Most of the photos are in black and white, with a few colour 'plates' of dubious hue.


More relevant were ads like this: well into the 60s, my mum was making coffee using Camp Coffee. I thought the resulting brew was vile, and it's one of the food products that probably divides the generations.

Camp Coffee is a peculiar mix - 26% is chicory essence. It's been made in Scotland since 1876. Three years ago, the label that I remember from childhood underwent a makeover, from this:

to this:

Are we sitting comfortably? The Daily Mail went wild with talk of political correctness, but I think it's the right move. Even if the Sikh gentleman does look a little uncomfortable. He's probably wondering why the hell he can't have tea instead.