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Apple Pies
Use either a good puff-paste or rub together half a pound of butter to every pound of flour used, until evenly mixed; then pour in a little cold water and salt, and stir up with two fingers drawing in the flour gradually. Spread some of the flour on the table, and pat the paste into a smooth mass in it; roll out the paste once, fold up as you would a napkin, and it is ready to use. Cover each patty-pan with a layer of paste, rolled thin. Peel some good apples, slice them off the cores into the pie, and cover with another crust; cut off the edges by pressing with both hands against the patty-pan, turning it round at the same time. Bake in a slack oven until the apples are done, say from fifteen to thirty minutes. If desired, a little nutmeg or cinnamon may be added, dredge a little flour over and add before the top crust is put on. A little sugar dusted over the top after they are baked improves the appearance.
Oscar's apple pies are individual pies baked in patty-pans, not one large pie, and the pastry is a quick rough-puff made in a single fold. Two things in the text need translating before you start: the pan and the oven.
- Patty-panA shallow individual tart or muffin tin, roughly 3 to 4 inches across. A standard 12-cup muffin tin or a set of small tartlet tins works; the recipe gives a ratio rather than a yield, but a pound of flour with half a pound of butter is enough paste for tops and bottoms for roughly a dozen small pies.
- "Slack oven" and the timingA slack oven in this period is a cooling one, generally reckoned somewhere in the region of 300-350F, though period usage varies. That is unlikely to brown pastry or soften apple slices in fifteen to thirty minutes. For pies this small, one modern approach is to start at 425F for about 15 minutes to set and colour the crust, then drop to 375F until the fruit yields to a skewer, usually another 15 to 20.
- The pasteHalf a pound of butter to a pound of flour, cut in and rolled with one fold, is a rough flaky paste rather than true puff. Keep the butter in visible flakes rather than rubbing to breadcrumbs, and chill the folded block for 20 minutes before rolling if the kitchen is warm.
- Water is unmeasured"A little cold water" is left vague, as flour absorbency varies. Reckon on roughly 1/2 to 2/3 cup for a pound of flour, added a spoonful at a time until the mass just coheres.
- Sliced off the coresApples are peeled and sliced directly off the whole core with a knife, which gives thin, irregular slices. Thin matters here: thick wedges will not cook through in the time given. Use a firm apple that holds its shape, such as Braeburn or Northern Spy.
- The dredge of flourThat scant dredging before the top crust goes on is the only thickener in the pie. It is enough for a small pie with a dry apple; a juicy variety will need a full teaspoon per pie or the bottom crust will go soft.
- No sugar insideThe apples are baked unsweetened and sugar is dusted over the finished pie, which makes for a sharp, fruit-forward filling. If that is too austere, a tablespoon of sugar tossed with the slices per pie is closer to modern taste.
- Sealing the edgesPressing both hands against the rim and turning trims and seals in one motion. Cut a small vent in each top crust regardless; steam trapped under a sealed lid will lift it off the fruit.
Individual pies baked in patty-pans have their practical logic: they portion cleanly, bake fast, and can be sent out on a plate without cutting. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896 while he was maitre d'hotel at the Waldorf, collects a great deal of this plain Anglo-American kitchen work alongside the hotel's grander French dishes, and the apple pie here has its sugar dusted on the outside rather than stirred through the fruit. The half-pound-of-butter-to-a-pound-of-flour ratio and the single fold are shorthand that assumes a reader who has made pastry before; the "slack oven" likewise assumes a coal or wood range being used after the main baking, when the heat was falling and the fire no longer needed feeding.