ICED APPLES, or APPLE HEDGEHOG

Ingredients

• About 3 dozen good boiling apples
• 1/2 lb sugar
• 1/2 pint water
• the rind of 1/2 lemon minced very fine
• the whites of 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoonful pounded sugar
• a few sweet almonds

Instructions

1. Peel and core a dozen of the apples without dividing them, and stew them very gently in a lined saucepan with 1/2 lb. of sugar and 1/2 pint of water, and when tender, lift them carefully on to a dish.
2. Have ready the remainder of the apples pared, cored, and cut into thin slices;
3. put them into the same syrup with the lemon-peel, and boil gently until they are reduced to a marmalade: they must be kept stirred, to prevent them from burning.
4. Cover the bottom of a dish with some of the marmalade, and over that a layer of the stewed apples, in the insides of which, and between each, place some of the marmalade;
5. then place another layer of apples, and fill up the cavities with marmalade as before, forming the whole into a raised oval shape.
6. Whip the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, mix with them the pounded sugar, and cover the apples very smoothly all over with the icing; blanch and cut each almond into 4 or 5 strips;
7. place these strips at equal distances over the icing sticking up; strew over a little rough pounded sugar, and place the dish in a very slow oven, to colour the almonds, and for the apples to get warm through.
8. This entremets may also be served cold, and makes a pretty supper-dish.