Bramley's Seedling

How wrong is it to assess a cooking apple by eating it out of hand? It certainly cannot do justice to the apple. ¶ 

Nonetheless, eating uncooked is my measuring stick. When I had to opportunity to try this legendary culinary apple, a staple in the United Kingdom, I did not hesitate.

Consider Bramley

This Bramley is large and squat, very oblate and very ribbed. One sample was essentially square, with four great lobes. 

They are a Granny Smith green (or close) and some have a small translucent red blush, almost like a bruise in the green. Lenticels are small and hard to see, white  though in the blush some are colored.

One spot on the back, about the size of an American quarter dollar, is a light yellow green, as though the green had been washed away. I can't think that I have ever seen anything quite like that.

The stem well is shallow and the stem is thick and short, like the apple. It has a glossy peel and a faint sweet aroma.

Just bite

Biting in to Bramley's Seedling finds crisp, firm flesh, fine-grained and off-white with a green cast.

The chew starts out promisingly, with sweet flavors of berries and a very little spice and table grapes, but loses flavor towards the end of the chew when the peel comes to the fore. The sugar is balanced by a good bit of acidity

These flavors are not bad ones but do not harmonize particularly well. Bramley is far from a spitter, and one can imagine its virtues in a pie, but it's not a great choice for a snack.

Baking

The moment I saw these I thought of another super-ribbed culinary apple, Calville Blanc d'Hiver. Bramley is sweeter and with flavors a bit less interesting. But both are for cooking, not eating.

One of Calville's virtues is how it retains its shape when cooked, suitable for the Tarte Tatin and other delights. 

Bramley, on the other hand, reputedly is prized because it kind of melts in the oven, infusing cakes and muffins with apple goodness. 

So closely is Bramley identified with baking in England that I saw "Bramley cakes" for sale there. That's as if you went into a diner in New England and asked for a slice of "McIntosh pie."

(Having let the cat out of the bag: yes, I was in England, and yes, British apples to come.)

History

For information about this variety, what better source than Orange Pippin, the Yorkshire-based apple website?

2009 was the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Bramley's Seedling, and—remarkably—the original tree was still alive in the same garden in Nottinghamshire, England, where it was planted as a pip by a young girl, Mary Ann Brailsford, 200 years before.

It takes its name from a subsequent owner of the house, a Mr Bramley who allowed a local nurseryman to propagate it in the 1850s on condition that it was given his name.

I've got nothing to add to that.