Southern-Style Apple Cobbler with Brandy Sauce

Line a skillet or deep pie pan—it must be three inches deep at least, liberally with short crust, rolled rather more than a quarter-inch thick. Fit well, then prick all over with a blunt fork. Fill with the prepared fruit, put on an upper crust a quarter-inch thick and plenty big enough, barely press the crust edges together, prick well with a fork all over the top, and cook in a hot oven half to three-quarters of an hour, according to size. Take up, remove top crust, lay it inverted upon another plate, sweeten the hot fruit liberally, adding if you like, a spoonful of brandy, adding also a good lump of the best butter. Mix well through the fruit, then dip out enough of it to make a thick layer over the top crust. Grate nutmeg over, or strew on a little powdered cinnamon. A few blades of mace baked with the fruit accent the apple flavor beautifully.

Serve cobbler hot or cold. If hot, serve with it hard brandy sauce, made by creaming together a cup of sugar, a tablespoonful of butter, then working in two tablespoonfuls of brandy or good whiskey. Right here is perhaps the place to say once for all, good whiskey is far and away better in anything than poor brandy. Thick sweet cream whipped or plain, sets off cold cobbler wonderfully to the average palate.

From "Dishes and Recipes of the Old South", 1913.

Apple Rine Fritters

* 1 cup sifted flour
* 1½ teaspoons baking powder
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* ½ teaspoon salt
* ¾ cup milk
* 1 egg
* 4 large apples

Sift dry ingredients. Add milk and egg. Beat well. Peel and core apples and slice in rings about ¼ inch thick. Dip rings in batter and drop into skillet containing ½ inch of hot melted shortening. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towel. Mix sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle over fritters. Makes 16 to 20.

Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Butter

* 4 qts. apples
* 2 qts. apple cider
* 2 cups sugar
* 2 cups dark corn syrup
* 1 tsp. cinnamon

Boil the cider until reduced to 1 quart. Pare the apples and slice thin. Put the apples into the cider and cook very slowly, stirring frequently, until it begins to thicken. Add sugar, syrup and cinnamon and continue to cook until thick enough to spread when cool.

Makes 5 to 6 pints.

Apple Recipes: Southern Apple Toddy

Wash and core, but do not peel, six large, fair apples, bake, covered, until tender through and through, put into an earthen bowl and strew with cloves, mace, and bruised ginger, also six lumps of Domino sugar for each apple. Pour over a quart of full-boiling water, let stand covered fifteen minutes in a warm place. Then add a quart of mellow whiskey, leave standing ten minutes longer, and keep warm.

Serve in big deep goblets, putting an apple or half of one in the bottom of each, and filling with the liquor. Grate nutmeg on top just at the minute of serving.

From "Dishes and Beverages of the Old South", Martha McCulloch Williams, 1913.

Rolled Oats with Apples

The combination of rolled oats and apples is rather unusual, still it makes a dish that lends variety to a breakfast or a luncheon. Such a dish is easily digested, because the apples supply to it a considerable quantity of cellulose and mineral salts.

(Sufficient to Serve Six)

* 2/3 c. rolled oats
* 2 c. boiling water
* 1/2 tsp. salt
* 6 medium-sized apples
* 1 c. water
* 1/2 c. sugar

Stir the rolled oats into the boiling salted water and cook them until they set; then place them in a double boiler and cook for 2 to 4 hours. Pare and core the apples, and then cook them whole in a syrup made of 1 cupful of water and 1/2 cupful of sugar until they are soft, but not soft enough to fall apart. To serve the food, place it in six cereal dishes. Put a large spoonful of the cooked oats in each dish, arrange an apple on top of the oats, and then fill the hole left by the core with rolled oats. Over each portion, pour some of the syrup left from cooking the apples, and serve hot with cream.

Cold Pork with Fried Apples

A combination that most persons find agreeable and that enables the housewife to use up left-over pork, is cold pork and fried apples. To prepare this dish, remove the cores from sour apples and cut the apples into 1/2-inch slices. Put these in a frying pan containing hot bacon fat and fry until soft and well browned. Slice cold pork thin and place in the center of a platter. Arrange the apples around the pork in a border.

Apple Recipes: Apple Souffle

4 eggs
4 apples
2 oz. of castor sugar (or more if the apples are very sour)
1 gill of new milk or half milk and half cream
1 oz. of cornflour
juice of 1 lemon.

Pare, cut up, and stew the apples with the sugar and lemon juice until they are reduced to a pulp. Beat them quite smooth, and return them to the stewpan. Smooth the cornflour with the milk, and mix it with the apples, and stir until it boils; then turn the mixture into a basin to cool. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs; beat the yolks well, and mix them with the apple mixture. Whisk the whites to a stiff froth, mix them lightly with the rest, and pour the whole into a buttered Soufflé tin. Bake for 20 minutes in a moderately hot oven, and serve at once.