A Brown Betty
Pare, core, and slice thin some fine juicy apples. Cover with the apples the bottom of a large deep white-ware dish. Sweeten them well with plenty of brown sugar; adding grated lemon or orange peel. Strew over them a thick layer of bread-crumbs, and add to the crumbs a very few bits of fresh butter. Then put in another layer of cut apples and sugar, followed by a second layer of bread-crumbs and butter. Next more apples and sugar; then more bread-crumbs and butter; repeat this till the dish is full, finishing it with bread-crumbs. Bake it till the apples are entirely done and quite soft. Send it to table hot. It will be improved (if in the country at cider-making season) by adding to each layer of apples a very little sweet unfermented cider, fresh from the press.
This pudding is in some places called an Apple Pandowdy. We believe it is Brown Betty in the South; Pandowdy in the North. It is a good plain pudding if the butter is fresh and sweet, and not too much of it. The apples must be juicy and not sweet. Sweet apples never cook well.