A 100 Year Old Family Recipe: Fruit Pudding

"Grandparents, like heroes, are as necessary to a child's growth as vitamins."

~Joyce Allston

If the test of a great recipe is how often you make it, then this one aces with honors.  It's been handed down on my mother's side of the family for at least 100 years.  My mother remembers her grandmother making it for her when she was a child.  A simple country dessert that has survived the test of generations who all found it worthy to treasure and pass down.

I have memories of my mother making this for me that go back as far as when I was four years old.  I can remember the kitchen table I sat at (a very unique oak table that she still has), the little crystal bowl she served it in and the secure, loved feeling I had.  I remember thinking it was wonderful then, and I still do now.  The other day when I served this my son had 3 helpings.  My daughter and her friends finished it off.  My hope is, when they are older they'll remember it like I do.  Tart, warm, silky cooked apples, lightly sweet soft cake with a crunchy topping and a dollop of vanilla ice cream, served with love.  I like to think of my Great Grandmother baking or enjoying this long before most of the modern conveniences we enjoy today.  She was gone long before I came along, but this fruit pudding was the same then, and possibly even many years before, as it is now.

No, this isn't her, but the era is just right :-)

I made the fruit pudding with apples this time, but you can substitute many different kinds of fruit, such as blueberries, blackberries, cherries or peaches.

Fruit Pudding


3 cups fresh fruit prepared as for pie
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk


Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 1 1/2 - 2 quart casserole dish.  If using apples, peel and slice as for apple pie, and stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.  For peaches, quickly blanch, peel and sweeten with 2 tablespoons sugar.  For berries, simple sweeten with 2 tablespoons sugar.  Place sweetened fruit in casserole.  In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugar together.  In a small bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder.  Add to butter and sugar with the milk.  Spread over fruit, it will seem skimpy, but is enough.

In a small bowl, mix together 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.  Sprinkle this evenly over the dough.  

Pour one cup of boiling water over all.

Bake one hour.  Serve warm with ice cream.  Serves 6.