The Lady’s or Invalid’s New Baked Apple Pudding (Author’s original receipt. Appropriate to the Jewish table)

Instructions

1. Acton's warning: this pudding contains no butter and is excellent when made with exactness, but any variation from the directions will probably be attended with entire failure - especially in the crust. If the proportion of sugar for the crust is diminished, the bread will not form a compact mass but will fall into crumbs when served.
2. Weigh six ounces of the crumb of a light stale loaf and grate it down small.
3. Mix thoroughly with it three ounces and a half of pounded sugar and a slight pinch of salt.
4. Take from a pound to a pound and a quarter of russets, or any other good baking apples. Pare them, then take them off the cores in quarters without cutting the fruit asunder - given that form, they lie more compactly in the dish.
5. Arrange them in close layers in a deep tart-dish holding about a pint and a half, strewing amongst them four ounces of sugar and the grated rind of a fine fresh lemon. Add the strained juice of the lemon.
6. Pour the bread-crumbs softly in a heap upon the apples in the centre of the dish, and with the back of a spoon level them gently into a very smooth layer of equal thickness, pressing them lightly down upon the fruit, which must all be perfectly covered.
7. Sift powdered sugar over, wipe the edge of the dish, and bake in a somewhat quick oven for rather more than three-quarters of an hour.
8. Variations: very pale brown sugar answers almost as well as pounded. For the nursery, some crumbs of bread may be strewed between the layers of fruit, and nutmeg or cinnamon used instead of lemon. An ounce or more of ratifias crushed to powder may be added to the crust, or strewed over the pudding before serving, where they are considered an improvement.