A ninety-year old recpie for Apple Cake.

[reynardo]

Bit of a back story first. When my mum and dad married in 1963, about six months after my paternal grandmother Marge went to my Mum and said "You know, George is looking a bit thin. You might need this." And she gave my mum a copy of the 1962 Commonsense Cookery Book. From it, my mother learned the basics of plain cakes, Irish Stew and Puff Pastry. She taught me from the book, and it still has the best profiterole recipe I've ever used.

When my grandmother moved from her home to a retirement village, we discovered among her belongings a copy of the 1926 Commonsense Cookery Book, and I can just imagine young Marge, about 6 months into her marriage, being approached by Granny Richards and handed a copy of the book and told "You know, Chas is looking a bit thin, dear. Perhaps you might need this..."

One of the recipes in the 1926 edition is for vegetable soup, and starts off "3d worth Beef Bones". The 1962 book has many of the same recipes, including this one, and it still starts off with "3d worth Beef Bones". You'd think in 36 years the value of beef bones might have changed a little. (For those not sure, 3d is "threepence", which translates as 2½ cents. It would buy 2 eggs out of a dozen in 1926, and less than 1 egg in 1962.)

Anyway, without further waffling, here's the recipe I first made from the 1962 cookbook. I shall translate the whole thing to modern-day terms, unless of course you're comfortable with "moderate ovens".


Apple Cake
Cake mixture
125g (4 oz) butter.
125g (4 oz) sugar
2 eggs
125g (4 oz) self-raising flour (or 125g plain flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder)
125g (4 oz) cornflour (cornstarch)

Apple mix - prepare this one before you start the cake mixture)
3 apples, peeled and grated
Grated rind 1 lemon
2 tablespoons sugar

Icing
250g (8 oz) pure icing sugar. (powdered sugar)
Juice 1 lemon
1 small teaspoon gound cinnamon.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C (350F)


2. Grease a swiss roll tin or line with cooking paper (I recommend use the paper. The apple will slightly toffee-ise at the edges and stick like hell)


3. Cream butter and sugar


4. Add well-beaten eggs


5. Sift together flour and cornflour, and add to mix


6. Spread half the mixture in the prepared tin.


7. Cover with the apple mixture


8. Add the remainder of the cake mixture, spreading it with a knife or the back of a spoon dipped in hot water. (I find it works better if you drop it in small spoonfuls over the apple mix, then spread it around. Don't expect it to be 100% smooth and perfect.)


9. Bake from 20 to 30 minutes (slightly brown on top, knife or skewer comes out clean)


10. When cool, cover with warm lemon icing.


11. Sprinkle with cinnamon.


12. Slice into pieces, stand back and watch as it evaporates before your eyes.

Comments

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

*steals recipe*

[kerravonsen]

Ah, so this is the secret of your superb cooking!

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

I had to start somewhere. My mother started me on the techniques for Plain Cake, and it all went from there. Mind you, both she and I have taken courses since, and there have been some glorious failures :-)

[nocturnus33]

Lovely!

I'm comfortable with "moderate" ovens. Mine has three options: Low, moderate and high so when an USA recipe says "X degrees" I'm completely fuck. hehehehe, your granny book will suit me better :)

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Heh. My Women's Weekly cookbook has the conversion in the back, for both Celsius and Fahrenheit. Also available (of course) at Wikipedia, but they haven't included Gas Marks.

In the spirit of being useful, have a chart (from an answer I once gave at Seasoned Advice)

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

The idea of a "fast" oven comes from the time when wood-burning stoves without temperature gauges were the most common ones in kitchens. A fast oven is anywhere from 400-425° F.

Conversion to Fahrenheit

Very slow (very low) oven: 300-325° F.
Slow (low) oven: 325-350° F.
Moderate (medium) oven: 350-375° F.
Fast/quick (high) oven: 375-400° F.
Very fast/very quick (very high) oven: 400-425° F.

Various "modern" cookbooks that attempt to explain these terms will often give different temperatures, but the degree of difference isn't usually that great (usually about 25 degrees in either direction); what was a fast oven to one cook may only have been a moderate oven to another.

A "pastry," "bread," or "bread-baking" oven generally refers to a temperature range of 360-380° F.

(Rounded) Conversion to Celsius

Very slow (very low) oven: 150-160/170° C.
Slow (low) oven: 160/170-180° C.
Moderate (medium) oven: 180-190° C.
Fast/quick (high) oven: 190-200° C.
Very fast/very quick (very high) oven: 200-220° C.

Conversion to Gas Marks

Very slow (very low) oven: 2-3
Slow (low) oven: 3-4
Moderate (medium) oven: 4-5
Fast/quick (high) oven: 5-6
Very fast/very quick (very high) oven: 6-7

Oven To Campfire Temperature Conversion Chart
(For Use with Dutch Ovens and Charcoal)

Slow (low) oven: 6-8 briquettes below/ 12-16 on lid
Moderate (medium) oven: 8-10 briquettes below/ 16-18 on lid
Fast/quick (high) oven: 10-12 briquettes below/ 18-24 on lid

Re: In the spirit of being useful, have a chart (from an answer I once gave at Seasoned Advice)

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

The one I loved was how they worked out the temperature in the days of a brick oven that you heated by filling it full of firewood and burning the wood until the entire space filled up...

You'd rake out all the coals, then test how hot it was by sticking your arm in and seeing how long you could leave it. Less than a second - VERY HOT.

Then, because setting all that up was a total pain, you'd have your dough ready to go in. Throw it in, let it cook, and mix up your fast-cooking cake (sponge, etc). Time to pull the bread out, have the sponge mix ready to go in, check the temp (Hmmm. Three seconds. Hot but not too much), then put in the cake.

Then mix up your medium-level stuff - heavier cakes, possibly the fruit tart in the pastry shell you made earlier with the bread. While that's cooking, mix up the biscuits/cookies that will have the slow bake.

In winter, the danger was the oven would cool too quickly, despite the double layer of bricks and the sand insulation. In summer, the danger was that you would cook, dropping like a fly in a stinking hot kitchen while you tried to get everything ready at once...

Re: In the spirit of being useful, have a chart (from an answer I once gave at Seasoned Advice)

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

I'm so very happy to have a modern oven. :P

I remember when I was super little overhearing my great-grandmother talk about her mom's "modern" oven—so safe because it wasn't open at the bottom anymore (where bread used to be baked, just the right place for a skirt to catch fire if one wasn't careful). o.O

[nocturnus33]

Gas marks has the "let's guess" conversion. It is a risky approach; the thing is that we have always bake like that so it is no bother at all. Cakes could be done at X° Celsius or at a "moderate" during 45 minutes. I also have an old fashion stove that need to be heat by wood. I burn everything I try to bake there, but my husband can bake and cook pretty well there.

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely trying this recipe!

[stgulik.livejournal.com]

It looks delicious! I can't wait to try it.

[feathersindigo.livejournal.com]

Good old Commonsense Cookery books :)

[feodora.livejournal.com]

What a nice story.

We have "Dr Oethkers Kochbuch" (Cookbook) over 4 generations as well. My great-grandmother my grandmother my mother and even my sister has one. Always the "newest" of their times.

[feathersindigo.livejournal.com]

Just remembered that Mum used to swear by the Green and Gold cookbook - which is probably a similar vintage as the Commonsense Cookery books