Historic Fruit Recipe: Essex Apple Pudding from 1845

This apple pudding recipe was contributed by Darrin Turpin, a professional gardener, keen orchardist and amateur pomologist. Darren has a fascination for fruit trees and a love of vintage walled gardens. He cares for the gardens at Ordsall Hall in Salford, England which dates back to 1177.

Darren's blog is Orchardnotes.com and in it, he shares best practice orcharding methods, details of the orchards and trees he looks after, the results of his assorted research projects. Darren enjoys growing heirloom apple cultivars and so historical orchard recipes have a special place in his heart.

Through the years he has found many recipes from centuries past. One of his favourite is this apple pudding recipe from 1845. In those days, recipes weren't structured in an easy to use format like they are today.

Here is what that 1845 recipe says:

Essex Pudding (Cheap and Good): Mix with a quarter of a pound of mashed potatoes, half a pound of good boiling apples minced, four ounces of brown sugar, four small eggs well beaten and strained and a little grated lemon-peel or nutmeg. Increase the ingredients one half and add two ounces of butter, should a larger and better pudding be desired: about half an hour will bake it.

Potatoes mashed, 4 ozs; apples 8 ozs; sugar 4 ozs eggs, 4, half hour.

Essex Pudding, Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery in All its Branches (1845)

This apple pudding recipe would work well with any tart cooking apple. According to Darren, some wonderful heirloom apple varieties for this dish would be:

• Bramley's Seedling, first grown in 1809 in Nottinghamshire county in England and introduced in nurseries in 1865
• Blenheim Orange, a favourite of Victorian orchards and gardens, discovered in 1740 in Woodstock, Oxfordshire in England
• Howgate Wonder, originating from 1915 in Howgate Lane, Bembridge on the Isle of Wight.
• Other historic English apples that might work are ones popular in their regions like Catshead, Norfolk Beefing, Keswick Codin, Cornish Aromatic, Downtown Pippin, Flower of Kent and lots more.
• You can learn more about heirloom apple varieties in this article.

The apple/potato combination in this Essex apple pudding recipe is unusual, but worth tasting!

Grow 
Fruit Trees 
That Thrive

Sign up for our newsletter and get this free eBook

Sign up for our newsletter and get this free eBook

Print

Essex Apple Pudding

This sweet apple pudding has a surprise ingredient: Potatoes! This heirloom fruit recipe comes from Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery in All Its Branches (1845). Recipe submitted by Darren Turpin of Orchardnotes.com.

Course Dessert

Servings 6 people

Ingredients

• 1 cup apple Minced
• 1/2 cup sugar dark brown or muscovado
• 1/2 cup mashed potato unseasoned (floury potatoes work best)
• 1/3 cup butter unsalted
• 4 eggs well beaten
• grated lemon to taste
• cinnnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove to taste

Instructions

• Mix ingredients in bowl.
• Pour into greased baking dish.
• Bake in a medium (180°C / 350°F) oven for approx 25 minutes, until the pudding is set and the surface is nicely browned.
• Serve immediately, topped with hot custard.
• Keeps well in the fridge, tastes great cold or rewarmed the day after.
• For a seasonal twist add 4 oz dried raisins or currants, pre-soaked in brandy, to the main ingredients, or serve with thick brandy cream.

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.