Name: Apples with the Vestal Fire
Yield: Serves 6
Cuisine: United Kingdom
Ingredients: 3 cups (7.5 dl) milk and a little more; ½ stick (60 g) butter; 2½ lb (1¼ kg) Cox’s Orange apples or Golden Delicious. 6 of these must be evenly sized to about 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter; Apricot jam; 1 cup (240 g) castor sugar; ½ cup (120 g) short-grain rice; Juice of 3 lemons; 4 tablespoons double cream; 2 eggs, well beaten; Brandy; 12 very small baked tart shells made with short pastry

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

English Provincial Cooking

By Elisabeth Ayrton

Published 1980

About

This was a full-dress sweet for a Reform Club dinner. It is grand and complicated, but the ingredients are simple and it is not very difficult to make for a dinner party. The effect of the blue flame burning on each little altar of apple and pastry, and the sea of blue flame round the bottom of the creamy rice is very pretty and surprising. The burnt brandy adds a very subtle flavour to the whole.