This week’s FFWD recipe was supposed to be Long and Slow Apples. Who can get excited about making a dish with that name? I challenge you to find any restaurant in the world that offers a dessert on its menu called Long and Slow Apples.
(Memo to Dorie: I changed the name of the recipe on page 390-391 of your Around my French Table cookbook.)
This brilliantly simple recipe was created over one hundred years ago by Edouard Nignon (1865-1934), regarded as one of France’s greatest chefs. According to Larousse Gastronomique, he was head chef to the Tsar, the Emperor of Austria, and president Woodrow Wilson. I’d wager all my Johnny Appleseed trading cards that Edouard would not approve of the long-and-slow moniker.
As Dorie explains, “This recipe entails nothing more than cutting apples as thin as you can (a mandoline is great here), layering them with a gossamer slick of butter and a sprinkling of sugar, weighting them down and baking them for a long time.”
Until you’ve had it,” she adds, “you can’t imagine how glorious this dish is.”
Not only did I slice four apples as thinly as possible, I also individually placed each slice carefully in the ramekins……….until ramekin #3.
Although this recipe is simple, it is time-consuming. After peeling and slicing the four apples thinly, each slice must be arranged carefully in individual ramekins. I hang my head in shame as I admit that by the third ramekin, I was tossing those apple discs haphazardly into the bowl, just hoping they’d settle according to plan. The fourth ramekin never got filled.
After wrapping each ramekin in parchment paper and then foil, I pierced it, making 4 air holes. Each had to also be weighted down before placing in the oven at 300 degrees.
The good news is that I have become a mandoline maven. You may recall that my first visit with a mandoline was just last summer when we made zucchini tagliatelle. I was totally intimidated. But, now, we’re friends. I also opted to use cinnamon rather than ginger and coriander to pump up the flavoring. Susan Lester who writes Create Amazing Meals, made this dessert a year ago and offered some good suggestions about it on her blog.
Serve this very delicious Pommes Confites warm, at room temperature or chilled. In the ramekin or unmolded. With a whipped cream topping, ice cream, crème fraîche, or just plain. It’s scrumptious. Since the first full week in Year 2013 has been such a happy and successful one for me, I enjoyed my dessert warm, topped with whipped cream, and with champagne. I wish I’d filled that fourth ramekin.
Dorie shares the ingredients necessary for this recipe here. Visit the French Fridays with Dorie link to see if my colleagues enjoyed this dessert as much as I did.
Beautiful! Mine are in the oven now and I hope they turn out as lovely and golden! Now that I know more or less how they are to be I can see playing around with it a bit as well.
Your apples turned out beautifully, love the name change you made in A M F T, way better than the original name, which is so unappealing!
It’s so pretty Mary! Not quite “confit” (not enough butter!) but it’s definitely a much nicer name than “long and slow” LOL! Well done!
LOL, Mary…I approve of the name change! Long and slow??? This dish definitely deserves a more exotic name. Your apples caramelized beautifully! Now I need to go read Susan’s take on this one, too. Happy weekend~
Kicking myself for not getting to these yet. Took me longer to get to the supermarket than it should have this week, so I wasn’t able to buy apples until today. Yours look DELICIOUS, and I’m kind of tempted to get started on them now, because I want to stick my face in your picture.
I just changed the name in my book so I can be just like you, and I also crossed out in heavy black anything to do with using plastic in the oven. Cher says there is a plastic wrap that is meant for ovens, but most of us regular folks don’t stock it in our kitchens…so….I failed. But your pommes confits look lovely! Nice write-up. Have a great weekend!
Mary, thank you for all the background info! I’m about to start mine and will definately not use plastic wrap. Totally agree w/you on the name change — all week I’ve been a bit “ho hum” about this week’s project, but now that I see some of you early birds’ posts I’m excited about dessert for today! 🙂 Bon weekend! 🙂
Your apples look perfect! Love the name change 🙂
Dorie needs to make the name change official! Yours turned out golden and beautiful. Mine are paler but delicious none the less. One of the things I really liked about this recipe was the change of spice. I love cinnamon as much as the next person but I enjoyed the change and I never would have thought of using coriander with apples! Mary, I’m so happy you’re first week of 2013 has been happy and successful! Here’s to an entire year of happiness and success for us both:)
“Mandoline Maven” indeed! (I am not even thinking about it!) A much prettier dessert than Crockpot Applesauce, although by Ramekin #2 I’d have been tossing those slices in. Fun post!
An appropriate name change, Mary!! Sounds so much more elegant and befitting of this dish! Your apples look fabulous…so glad you enjoyed them! Have a wonderful weekend!!
Love it! They look wonderful – thanks for the shout out!
Dorie definitely needs our feedback for her 2nd Edition!
Have a lovely weekend! xoxo
Perfect name Mary! I, too, decided a talk with Dorie was in order. This is a superb dessert, and a glass of wine with it sounds like the right thing. Have a great weekend!
Beautiful apples. They look delicious. Great pictures.
I love that you turned them out into a lovely dish. And the new name – PERFECT!!
You apples look fantastic! I’m smiling reading your post, the name is boring!
Your bit of history for the dessert and proposed name change has definitely added some deserved glamour 🙂
PS…I did weigh my ramekins down, but I missed the point of piling the apples above the rim, so I had no squishing problems with the rose, etc 🙂 Have a great weekend!
I changed the name too since all my cohorts could not stop laughing about Long & Slow Apples! I thought of you while I used the mandoline and hoped I would be as successful as you were and all my digits are still intact so I think I was! 🙂 You and I must be on the same wavelength because I also used cinnamon and really loved the flavor punch. Beautiful apples Mary!
I loved your last few pics- I got in a rush for time & ended up throwing mine in the ramekins, also! So funny! But your finished product is gorgeous!
Ha – loved the name change. Beautiful dessert.
Now – re: the Furby. We are a house full of near adults and we love her. You should see the things people do to get her to sing and dance or speak. (Hysterical). Maybe we are all living through our second childhood or have a strong case of nostalgia. 🙂 (And… you can get a decent spaetzle maker for about 10$…)
I agree that your name for this is better than Dorie’s! Your apples look delicious. I will definitely be trying this again, learning from everyone’s posts on how to improve it. I feel certain that you are going to adore next week’s chicken livers!!!!!
Lovely! Champagne would not be wasted on this dessert. It’s good to know that parchment paper works in place of the cling wrap (I just used buttered foil).
The carrot soup is lovely, by the way. I brought the leftovers to my parents and they really enjoyed it, too.
These sound amazing Mary but I have to admit that I might not have the patience either for them although the end results sound well worth it!
I was sorry that I cut this recipe in half. It was so good and probably more healthy than
most. I wonder if using a sugar substitute such as splenda would work in this. I use
that in my cheese cake and it seems okay. Love the picture with the glass of champagne,
PERFECT…… Have a great weekend.
I loved this one too! 🙂
I didnt waste too much time with layering the apples, I could have fit much more in there but I just didn’t since I don’t have much time with two young ones running around so it wasn’t time consuming but I felt like it was a bit nit picky…
My daughter loved this dessert and when she asked the name, she got a puzzled look on her face and said that she expected a beautiful french name. I am going to tell her the name you gave it. It suits the dessert so much better. Beautiful job!
This was hilarious- I was laughing out loud about your naming convention ! I definitely vote for yours instead. And boy did they turn out picture perfect after all that effort. Not sure whether I am just feeling lazy in 2013 or it was the flu…but I agree that it seemed like a lot of effort. I am not yet wonderful friends with the mandolin but I didn’t get hurt either (victory for sure). By the time I peeled, cut and weighed down the apples it just seemed like to much effort to not involve a crust. Yes, a crust would have won this carb lover over for sure 🙂
I agree with the name problem. What the heck? I thought I might be the only one who thought it was strange. Your apples are gorgeous! You got amazing caramelization. I never thought to add weight inside the top ramekins. Good idea!
You apples look beautiful. Such a nice caramelized color and organized stack!
Mary, I must apologize for being soo late with my comment on the Pommes Confites post from last week! We were so busy and I was so tired…But I wanted to let you know that your dessert looks so wonderfully delicious and has such a great color – I wish I would have had a glass of wonderful champagne to accompany my apple dessert last week! I am making this again this week (a birthday request, no less) but I think I will use a somewhat larger “vessel” to cook/bake these apples in – too much of a crowd and not enough space in my oven it seems.
Such a simply and lovely dessert. Yours looks fabulous, the name change is a good idea…
LL
Exquisite Mary, and I positively love the name change! These sound delicious. Did you switch out for coriander or did you mean cardamom? This would be a wonderful dish to prepare on a snowy day. See you soon.