Applemoyse*

Categories:	16th century   apples   fruit
Original Source:	A Proper Newe Boke of Cookery
Secondary Source:
Cook:	Kate Morgan
Meeting Date:	1982-03-07

Take a dosen apples and ether rooste or boyle them and drawe them thorowe a streyner, and the yolkes of three or four egges withal, and, as ye strayne them, teper them wyth three or four sponeful of damaske water yf ye wyll than take and season it wyth suger and halfe a dysche of swete butter and boyle them upon a chaffyngdysche in a platter, and byskettes or synamon and gynger upon them and so serve them forthe.

Steps

1. roasting apples (I didn't try to boil them), I tried four different variations; 1-peeled and wrapped in foil, 2-not peeled and wrapped, 3-peeled and 4-not peeled and not wrapped. For purposes of the second step (straining) I found method 1 to work the best, because it made the apple mushiest, and there wasn't any skin to fool around with.
2. straining apples was very tedious, I used a metal mesh pasta strainer and used a teaspoon to push the meat of the apple through. This resulted in a very fine "applesauce". If the apple wasn't cooked enough a large amount of it was wasted. This resulted in approximately 1 1/2 cps. of "applesauce."
3. I beat the yolks and rosewater together and then beat them into the "applesauce" trying to get it as smooth as I could.
4. I creamed the sugar and butter together and mixed it in with the rest of the ingredients. The mixture became somewhat lumpy at this point.
5. "boiling" 1- I tried to boil the mixture but this was total mistake. 2- using a non-stick teflon pan, I spooned small amounts of the mixture in; at higher temperatures it burned the egg part of the mixture, at lower temperature the effect was to thicken it, although it was of a thick sauce texture rather than a pudding one.

Note

It tasted rather good, especially when hot. The texture and taste was something like hot creamy applesauce. Their suggestion to serve it on biscuits would be good. It is obviously meant to be served hot since the instruction is to "boyle them on a chaffyngdysche" a method used on a table. A large amount of sugar doesn't seem to be called for and in tasting it, I thought that too much sweetness would ruin the flavor. I wouldn't recommend this for a large dinner, because of the need to serve it hot, and because it takes so long to strain the apples. My most negative reaction to this is that it doesn't seem to have much texture. I think it would make an extremely good filling for something.

Suggestions for future tests:
Melt the butter before mixing in. Use confectioner's sugar. If more eggs were used perhaps something else interesting would evolve, or this recipe would turn out more like apple omelettes.(?) Also - put whole recipe in at once - maybe more of a pudding texture.