Historic Fruit Recipe: Mother Eve's Apple Currant Recipe

Currants are a wonderful fruit to grow...but what do you do with them? You can use them in muffins and cakes. Or you can taste your way through history by making this historic apple currant recipe from the 1820s.

This recipe was contributed by Paul Couchman of Regencycook.co.uk, Paul is a history buff who teaches historic cooking courses in person and online.

Historic Cook Paul Couchman in costume and the Regency House Historic Kitchen — Paul Couchman is a historic cook who set up a pop up Regency-style restaurant at the Regency Town House in Hove, England.

Paul also set up the successful Dine Like a Servant pop-up restaurant in The Regency Town House in Hove, England.

Paul found this apple currant recipe in a hand-written cookbook that dates back to the 1820s and it was originally written in the form of a poem which is at first glance, hard to understand.

The original manuscript calls for "2 pennyworth of eggs when they’re twelve for a groat.” A groat was a British silver coin worth 4 pennies at the time.

It may have come from Mary Eaton in 1823 in the Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary.

He has adapted the recipe below for a serving for one person, but you can scale this up by increasing the number of eggs and other ingredients proportionately.

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Mother Eve's Apple Currant Pudding Recipe

This recipe dates back to England in the 1820s.

Course Dessert

Servings 1

Ingredients

1 egg
1 apple Russet
1 oz breadcrumbs
1 oz currants
1 oz sugar
salt to taste
nutmeg to taste
brandy optional
butter optional

Instructions

To be truly authentic take a piece of cheesecloth, muslin, or any old piece of cotton to act as a pudding cloth. Wet with boiling water, flour generously in the middle of the cloth, on both sides, use a bowl to support the cloth and fill with the pudding mix.
Tie tightly with string. Boil for an hour.
Place in an oven dish and fill 2/3 with hot water. Place in a pre-heated oven of 200 degrees centigrade which is 392 Fahrenheit. And cook for an hour, checking the water levels every 15 minutes, filling up with boiling water from a kettle when water level drops.
Delicious served with a white sauce with port or even custard.

Susan Poizner

Award-winning author, podcaster, fruit tree care educator and creator of the fruit tree care education website OrchardPeople.com. Learn more about Susan on the about us page.

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