Tag: apples

Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Baked Apples

VintageJenny

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. We’ve all heard it, and by the 1920s it was a common saying. During the autumn and winter Twenties cooks attempted to keep the family healthy by providing a variety of foods. Since variety lessens with the wintertime if you eat local or regional foods, fruits like apples take on importance. Today Sue makes Baked Apples designed to tempt jaded appetites.

This is Lesson 10 of a 51-lesson cooking course from 1924 called When Sue Began to Cook. Click the link if this is your first exposure to the series and it will take you back to Lesson 1.

In the book this recipe is actually called Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples. Sue’s mother Bettina spends lots of time trying to devise a way to get Ruth Ann to eat more. She thinks of naming a food after Ruth Ann as an enticement. We’ll see how that works out in Sue’s notes from the day’s class.

Sue’s notes on Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples

It seems to me Mother is a good deal more interested these days in what Ruth Ann eats than in what I eat, and ever since she gave her the blue bowl she has tried and tried to improve her appetite. (Ruth Ann’s appetite, of course.)

“We must teach her to cook the things she ought to eat,” Mother said to me this morning. “Her grandmother doesn’t realize what a thin little thing she is. We’ll have to make her rosy and strong before her Mother gets home.”

Baked apples was one of the foods Mother thought Ruth Ann ought to eat, and of course it was one of the things she ‘specially disliked. But Mother told us she had invented a new dish called Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples, a kind that every child — girl or boy — was sure to like.

“Mmm,” said Robin. “Make enough for me, too!” But I guess he doesn’t need any new dishes to make him eat.

These baked apples were good, much better than the common ones. And Ruth Ann really liked them. In fact, she ate two which was as many as Robin had.

While they were baking, Mother talked to us about oven meals. And about learning to plan, when you were using the oven for one dish, to make it a whole oven dinner. Of course with our two pans of baked apples there wasn’t a lot of room left in the oven. But Mother popped a little casserole of escalloped salmon in for our lunch so it could be cooking at the same time. “By the time this year is up,” she said, “I want you girls to be able to plan meals as well as cook them, and plan sensibly, too.” And I want you to help me do the marketing this summer.”

“Goodie!” said Robin. “I’ll go along with my wagon and haul the things home.”

“Fine,” said Mother. “And we’ll all learn to keep account of the money we spend.”

“Can I go marketing too?” Ruth Ann asked. “Will I be in the way?”

“In the way? Of course not!” replied my darling Mother. “Why, I want you to learn how so you can be the housekeeper when you’re back in your own house again.”

“If that time ever comes!” sighed Ruth Ann. But her eyes were shining and I knew she was feeling happy.

Make your own Baked Apples

Baked apples can be as simple as hollowing out apples, filling them with butter and a little brown sugar, and baking them. This recipe adds a little more flavor to make them special.

Print Recipe

Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples

From When Sue Began to Cook, 1924.

Ingredients

  • 4 large red apples all about the same size
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp powdered cinnamon
  • 4 marshmallows
  • 4 halves English walnut meats
  • 8 raisins
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 Tbsp butter

Instructions

  • First of all we washed the apples and then Mother showed us how to get the core out with the corer. We did it by digging a hole right around the core but not clear through the apple. You see we had to make a cup of each apple to hold the filling, so it had to be a hole and not a tunnel. Then we washed the apples again and we each set ours (open side up, like a cup) in a little whte enamelled baking pan.
  • Next, Mother had us each take one third of our cup of light brown sugar and mix it with the cinnamon. We put this into the cavities of our apples and then stuffed a marshmallow, a nut-meat, and two raisins in on top of it. On top of that we put half a level tablespoon of butter in each apple. Then Mother had us mix the rest of the sugar (we each had two-thirds of a cup left, of course) with the water and pour that over the tops of the apples.
  • Then we put the baking dishes in the oven, just a moderate oven, Mother said [350º F]. And baked our apples 40 minutes. Oh yes, I forgot to say that Mother had us baste the apples several times while we were cooking. I had heard people talk about basting a turkey, and I always supposed that meant sewing it up with a thread. It doesn't at all. Basting means to take a big kitchen spoon and dip up the juice in the pan and pour it over whatever is cookihg. Well, we basted our baked apples several times to make them juicy and good, and it surely worked. They were the nicest, fattest, juciest baked apples you ever saw.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue cooks Wheat Cereal

VintageJenny
Sue and Ruth Ann make wheat cereal in 1920s double boilers.

On her third cooking lesson, Sue cooks Wheat Cereal with Dates. This lesson took place on Saturday December 9 according to When Sue Began to Cook. This would be considered a warm winter breakfast, although some Twenties families served it throughout most of the year for its nutrition.

If you missed the first two installments, you can start the series with When Sue Began to Cook. Lesson 2 is Sue Cooks Frizzled Beef.

Sue’s notes from the lesson explain why they are making cereal for their Saturday cooking lesson:

It all came about because Ruth Ann told us her Grandmother was always fussing at her because she wouldn’t eat any breakfast food. “But I just can’t, Aunt Bettina. Not even for Mother’s sake!” she said. “I’m never one bit hungry for breakfast.”

Eating breakfast

Ruth Ann is an emotional child, and when she told us about the great big dish of oatmeal her Grandmother set in front of her every morning, her eyes filled with tears, and she shivered almost as if she were cold. “In a thick old bowl, too!” she added. “No wonder I hate it!”

“What’s the bowl got to do with it?” jeered Robin, who always hangs around on our cooking days. “You don’t have to eat the bowl too, do you?”

We all laughed at that, although Mother shook her head at Robin and told him to run out and feed his rabbits. “I know just how you feel about the bowl, Ruth Ann.” she said. “Because I was your kind of a little girl myself once. Of course you must eat your breakfast food, but I’m going to show you just how you can do it and really enjoy it. First, you’ll have to make it yourself!”

Ruth Ann making her own

Ruth Ann looked doubtful. “Maybe Grandmother won’t let me,” she answered. “And besides I don’t know how.”

“You can soon learn,” said Mother. “In fact, you can learn today. And then I am going to give you a little blue bowl to eat it in, a bowl I had when I was a little girl.”

“Oh Mother, the one that used to be Aunt Mattie’s?” I cried, very much surprised. I knew that was one of Mother’s chiefest treasures.

“Yes, dear, Aunt Mattie’s,” Mother said. “Ruth Ann may have it for hers, and I know she’ll take good care of it. See, Ruth Ann!”

I was full of envy when Mother brought out the lovely little round porridge bowl, so thin and dainty. She would scarcely let Robin or me touch it, not to mention using it for our breakfast food!

“It seems to me even oatmeal would taste good in that,” said Ruth Ann with shining eyes. “That is, if I didn’t have to eat too much of it!”

“Wait till I show you how to make my kind of wheat cereal with dates,” said Mother. “It will give you as big a breakfast appetite as Robin’s! But in order to have the charm complete, you must do a third thing for me.”

“Oh, I will! I will! What is it?” cried Ruth Ann eagerly.

Nutrition and exercise go hand in hand

“While the cereal is cooking in the double boiler, you must put on your coat and hat and run around the house six times, no matter how cold and snowy it is.”

“Of course I will if you say so, Aunt Bettina!” (Mother isn’t truly her aunt, you know. She only calls her so because her Mother and mine were such good friends when they were little girls.)

“And then you must come in, finish cooking the breakfast food, and eat a good sized dish of it in the little blue bowl.”

“Oh, I will! I will! And I’ll write and tell Mother all about it!”

“Splendid! said Mother. “But now we must get to work on our third cooking lesson and learn exactly how to make Wheat Cereal with Dates.”

Make it yourself

Here’s the recipe for Wheat Cereal with Dates as it appeared in the book.

Print Recipe

Wheat Cereal with Dates

from How Sue Began to Cook, 1924.
Course: Breakfast
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Bettina, When Sue Began to Cook

Ingredients

  • 3 cups boiling water
  • ¾ cup wheat cereal such as Cream of Wheat
  • 1 tsp salt Don't forget this if you want it to be good
  • ½ cup seeded dates, cut fine

Instructions

  • First, we looked over the dates and washed them well. Then we took out the seeds with a sharp little knife. Then we cut them very fine. (The dates, not the seeds.)
  • We each put three cups of water in the top of our own double boiler and set it directly over the fire. We had the under part of the double boiler half full of hot water on another part of the stove. We let the three cups of water come to a slow boil and then we added the salt. We stirred the cereal in slowly, mixing it with a spoon all the time. (Mother told us not to let the water stop dancing while the cereal was being added.)
  • * Note: Today's double boilers are not usually designed to sit on a stove's heating element without the bottom portion. Only the bottom part fits on the stove. If you use a double boiler, it will take longer to bring the water to a boil with both sections together. Or you can use a heavy pot directly over the flame, but it must be stirred well or it will stick and scorch.
  • When all the cereal was in, we let it boil hard for about three minutes, stirring it all the time.
  • Then we each set the utensil (I mean the upper part of the double boilder holding the cereal) into the lower part that had water in it, and let it cook that way slowly for about forty five minutes.
  • After the cereal had cooked for thirty minutes we added the dates and let it cook fifteen minutes more. ("The kitchen clock is the cook's best friend," Mtoher says.)
  • If you'll just try it yourself and serve it warm with sugar and cream, you'll never say again that you don't like breakfast food! Mother says we can use raisins or seeded prunes cut fine the next time we make this cereal, but as for me, give me dates!