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Dutch Apple Cake
2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 cup milk, 2 eggs, and 3 tablespoons melted Crisco. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add beaten yolks, Crisco and milk. Beat well; cut and fold in stiffly beaten whites. Spread mixture 1/2 inch thick on Criscoed pans. Lay apples cut into eighths in 2 rows on top of dough. Sprinkle with sugar; bake in hot oven 30 minutes. Serve with lemon sauce.
A quick baking-powder batter with apples pressed into the top, from one of the Crisco-sponsored cookbooks of the 1910s. The original assumes you know the pan size, the apple count and what lemon sauce is; here is the missing information.
- Hot ovenSet the oven to 425F. Thirty minutes at that heat suits a half-inch layer; if you spread the batter thicker in a smaller pan, drop to 400F and expect closer to 40 minutes.
- CriscoCrisco is hydrogenated vegetable shortening, and the recipe exists to sell it. Melted butter gives better flavour here, and a neutral oil works too — the quantity is the same 3 tablespoons. "Criscoed pans" simply means greased.
- Pan and thicknessHalf an inch of batter from this quantity fills a 9x13 sheet pan or two 8-inch rounds. The thin layer is the point: this is closer to a topped biscuit dough than a cake, and doubling the depth changes the dish.
- How many applesNone is stated. Three to four firm tart apples, peeled and cut in eighths, will cover a 9x13 in the two rows described. Press the wedges in on edge so they stand partly proud of the batter.
- The sugarAlso unmeasured. Two to three tablespoons scattered over the apples is enough for tart fruit; a pinch of cinnamon is not in the original but is entirely in keeping with the style.
- Folding the whitesThe whites are the only lift beyond the baking powder, so fold them in with a light hand and get the pan into the oven promptly. A batter that sits loses both.
- Lemon sauceNot given in the recipe, and assumed knowledge at the time: a cup of water or apple juice thickened with a tablespoon of cornstarch, sweetened, then finished off the heat with lemon juice, zest and a knob of butter.
- YieldEight to ten servings from a 9x13. Best warm from the pan — it stales quickly, as thin quick-bread batters do.
"Dutch apple cake" in American cookbooks almost never means Dutch; the name is generally traced to Pennsylvania German (Deitsch) baking, where a raised or quick dough pressed with fruit and sugar was ordinary hot-oven fare. Yeast-raised versions are the older form, and baking-powder ones like this became common later. Procter and Gamble commissioned full cookbooks in which every recipe called for the new shortening, and older household standbys like this one were rewritten with Crisco in the ingredient list and "Criscoed" pressed into service as a verb.