You can make practically anything with apples, and cooks in Minnesota took full advantage of their winter hardy breeds. You can cook apples alone with cinnamon and sugar to make applesauce or apple butter, add less water and a crust and you have a pie, add a topping and you are on your way to an apple crisp, or a brown betty, or a cobbler.

Many early cookbooks also instructed home cooks on how to use apples as an accompaniment to meat and savory dishes. Cooks were instructed to encircle a Crown Roast of Young Pork with a “surround of fried apples” (Stevenson Cookbook, 1919) or add baked apples to a ham. Apple ideas were as abundant as the fruit itself: they are a key ingredient in mincemeat, salads, pies and cakes, and preserved fruits, jams, and more. Of course, eating them fresh off a tree is also a treat!

The following historic apple recipes come from the Stevenson Memorial Cook Book, published by Sarah Hackett Stevenson Memorial Lodging House Association in 1919.

Christmas Salad

Two large grapefruit; one cup chopped celery; one cup chopped tart apples; one-half cup hickory nut meats. Cut grapefruit in small pieces, being careful to remove all partitions and tough parts. Drain off juice, add celery, apples, nuts and mayonnaise. Toss together and serve on small leaves of cabbage. Garnish with round pieces of pimentos to resemble holly berries and pieces of green pepper cut to resemble holly leaves.

Dutch Apple Pie, by Mrs. H. Abells

Line pie plate with crust and fill with quartered apples. Add to one cup of sugar, one large tablespoonful of flour and stir into one cup of cream; pour over apples. Grate nutmeg over all and bake without upper crust.

Thorn Apples

Prepare a syrup by boiling eight minutes two cups sugar and three-fourths cup of water. Wipe, core and pare eight apples (Greenings). Drop apples into syrup as soon as pared. Cook slowly until soft but not broken, skim syrup when necessary. Drain from syrup, fill cavities with quince yelly [sic] and stick apples thickly with blanched, shredded and delicately toasted almonds. Chill and serve with cream as dessert or use as a garnish with cold meats.

Hot Apple Dessert Dish, by Mrs. Eustace

Pare, quarter, core and slice five or six large apples. Put these in a serving dish suitable for the oven, in layers, with seeded raisins and one cup of sugar. Cover and let bake until apple is tender. Remove the cover and set marshmallows over the top of the apples, using as many as desired; return dish to the oven, for a minute only, to heat the marshmallows, and brown them slightly. Serve with or without cream.

Apple Pudding, by Miss Flora Gill

One cup sugar; one cup flour; two eggs; one-half cup of sweet milk; fill a three-pint baking dish with sliced apples, two-thirds full. Add one-half cup of sugar, a little cinnamon, and some water. Bake until very tender. When still very hot pour over the top a cake batter made as follows: Beat one cup of sugar with yolks of two eggs; one tablespoonful soft butter, and milk and flour. Mix two heaping teaspoonfuls of baking powder with flour before adding to the batter. Fold in stiffly beaten whites of the eggs and add extract of vanilla. Bake half an hour in a moderate oven. Serve with prepared sauce.

Brown Betty

Butter the inside of a baking dish, cover the bottom with a layer of tart apples, peeled and sliced. Sprinkle this with sugar and cinnamon or nutmeg and put over it a layer of crumbs, strewing it with bits of butter. Repeat the layers of apple and crumbs until the dish is full, making the top crumbs with an extra quantity of butter. Cover the pudding dish, put it in the oven, and bake slowly for twenty or thirty minutes; uncover, brown lightly; serve in the dish in which it was cooked, with either hard or liquid sauce.

Eggless [Applesauce] Cake, by Mrs. W. H. Muschlet

One cup apple sauce, unsweetened; one teaspoonful soda; one cup of sugar; one-half cup butter; one and one-half cup flour—depends on consistency of apple sauce; one teaspoonful ground cinnamon; one teaspoonful ground allspice; one-half teaspoonful cloves; one-half teaspoonful nutmeg; one-half cup citron, cut in small pieces; one or over cups of nuts. Mix flour, nuts and citron well. Cream butter and sugar till it pops; add apple sauce; which turns brown. Then add spices, flour, nuts and citron. Bake in moderate oven in flat pan about 35 minutes, probably 40 minutes. If preferred iced, cut in squares. Make double quantity, as the longer kept the better.

Yellow Tomato Preserves [with Sour Apples], by Mrs. T. B. Orr

Two quarts tomatoes; two lemons ground, use juice and all; four chopped large sour apples; two and one-half cups brown sugar; two teaspoonfuls cinnamon; one teaspoonful ground ginger; one-half teaspoonful cloves. Cook slowly until thick. Put in jars.

Quince Honey, by Aunt Margaret

Peel and grate three large quinces and one tart apple. Make a syrup of three pints of granulated sugar and one pint of water; have the syrup boiling briskly; stir in the grated fruit and boil twenty minutes.

Mince Meat, by A. E. Loring

One quart bowl each of chopped lean beef and of chopped apples; two quinces chopped fine; one-half bowl each of suet and molasses; one and one-half bowls each of brown sugar; raisins; currants; one-half bowl of candied lemon and orange peel chopped fine; one-half bowl of citron chopped fine, grated rind and juice of two lemons; one glass jelly; one pint of boiled cider; one pint of sweet cider; four level teaspoonfuls cinnamon; one level teaspoonful cloves; one-third teaspoonful white pepper; three teaspoonfuls salt and one grated nutmeg. Allow meat to cool in the water in which it was cooked; remove all membrane from suet and cream it with your hand; chop meat, add suet, apples, quinces, molasses, sugar, raisins, currants, orange and lemon peel, citron, lemon juice, jelly and cider; heat gradually and let it simmer three hours. When cool add the spices and if desired, brandy to taste.

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