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Apple Lemon Pie
2 Cups Chopped Apples 1/2 Cup Oatmeal Grated Rind and Juice of 1 lemon 2 Eggs 2 Tablespoons Butter Substitute 3/4 Cup Honey Mix the ingredients in the order given, having the eggs well beaten and the fat melted. Put into a pastry shell cover with a top crust and bake in a moderate oven.
A one-crust-and-a-lid pie whose filling is thickened with oatmeal and sweetened entirely with honey. The original gives no pan size, oven number or baking time, so the notes below fill in what the book assumes its reader already knows.
- Moderate ovenRead this as roughly 350-375F. The original gives no other temperature and no staged heat; a high initial blast to set the bottom crust is a modern addition, not something the recipe directs.
- Baking timeExpect roughly 45 to 55 minutes in a moderate oven. The pie is done when the top crust is browned and the filling no longer sloshes when the pan is nudged; the egg should be fully set.
- Butter substituteThis means margarine or a vegetable shortening of the period, when butter itself was scarce or dear. Two tablespoons of butter works perfectly well and tastes better; melt it, as directed, so it disperses through the honey.
- OatmealMost likely rolled oats rather than a coarse or steel-cut grade, though the recipe does not specify. The oats act as the thickener in place of flour or cornstarch, absorbing the apple and lemon juice as the pie bakes; a coarse-cut oat will stay gritty.
- Honey and browningThree-quarters of a cup of honey is a wet, acidic sweetener that browns faster than sugar. Shield the crust edge with foil if it colours before the filling sets.
- The applesChopped, not sliced, so they cook through quickly and bind with the oats. Use a firm tart variety — Granny Smith, Braeburn, Northern Spy — since the honey and lemon are both assertive and a sweet apple gives a flat filling.
- Vent the topA sealed lid over a wet, egg-bound filling will dome and split. Cut steam vents or use a lattice.
- YieldThe original gives no pan size; the quantities suit one 8- or 9-inch pie, roughly six servings. Let it cool at least an hour before cutting, as the oatmeal and egg firm further as it cools.
Honey standing in for sugar and oatmeal for flour fits the habits of wartime and postwar conservation cooking, when household campaigns urged American cooks to spare wheat and refined sugar. The result is a fruit filling bound with a cereal rather than cornstarch, closer in spirit to a lemon-and-oat pudding baked in pastry. The lemon is doing real work: honey without an acid reads cloying, and the grated rind supplies the aroma that a honey-sweetened filling otherwise lacks.