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Baked Apple Sauce
2 apples (cored, pared, and cut in eighths) 1 tablespoonful water 2 tablespoonfuls brown sugar 1 teaspoonful lemon juice Put alternate layers of apples, sugar and seasonings in a small baking dish, cover and bake in a slow oven for 1 hour. A little grated nutmeg may be added if desired. Serve hot or cold.
A one-dish invalid-cookery apple sauce that needs almost nothing from a modern cook beyond a real oven number and a lid that fits.
- Slow ovenSet the oven to 300F. At that heat the apples soften and collapse into sauce over the full hour without browning at the edges.
- Keep it coveredThe single tablespoon of water is all the liquid there is, so the lid does the work. A tight cover, or foil crimped over a small ramekin or baking dish, traps the steam the apples give off; uncovered, the sugar scorches and the fruit dries out.
- Choice of appleAn apple that breaks down is what you want here — McIntosh, Cortland, Gravenstein, or a Bramley if you can get one. Granny Smith and Honeycrisp hold their shape and will give you baked wedges rather than sauce.
- SugarBrown sugar around 1900 was generally less refined than today's, soft and moist. Modern light brown sugar is a reasonable match; dark brown will taste more of molasses than of apple.
- "Seasonings"The recipe lists only lemon juice and optional nutmeg, so "alternate layers of apples, sugar and seasonings" means little more than sprinkling as you go. A pinch of salt is a fair addition and sharpens the fruit.
- YieldTwo apples make roughly one cup of sauce — one generous portion, or two small ones. It scales up straightforwardly, though a deeper dish may need longer in the oven.
- Texture at the endStir once when it comes out to bring the syrup and fruit together. Beating it smooth is optional.
Baked apple sauce belongs to the "sick room" chapter because nineteenth- and early twentieth-century invalid cookery worked from a short list of foods thought bland, digestible and unlikely to tax a fever patient: gruels, beef tea, milk toast, arrowroot, junket and cooked fruit. Apples were the year-round standby, cheap and keeping well in a cellar, and baking rather than boiling them meant no watching, no stirring and no pan to scald — a real consideration in a household where someone was already occupied with nursing. The Philathea Cook Book is a church-class fundraising collection, the sort compiled by a women's Bible class from members' own contributions, and such books often carried a short invalid or convalescent section alongside the cakes and pickles. The lemon juice is doing more than seasoning: acid helps keep the fruit pale and gives a little brightness to a diet that was otherwise relentlessly mild.