Slicing through time: The storied history of a 1948 apple pie recipe

If there were a museum of old culinary recipes, the recipe we will talk about today would surely find its place there. The 1948 apple pie recipe is a piece of culinary history that teaches and tastes great.

The history of apple pie is extraordinary. It originated at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and its name is thanks to the nickname of Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. It was in honour of "Charlotte of Prussia" that the now-popular apple pie was created, with the first confectioner who made it believed to be the French confectioner Marie-Antoine Carême, who at one point in his life served at the Tsar's court.

Today, none of us can imagine confectionery existing without apple pie. The tradition of baking has not faded for a moment, although the recipes have been changed and refined multiple times. Even in 1948, apple pie was prepared with the addition of lard, as evidenced by the recipe contained in the book "Cakes, cookies, biscuits", published just after the war. Below, we present the full recipe and recommend it to all home confectionery fans. It's worth it because the cake turns out to be both crumbly and incredibly juicy.

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 350g wheat flour,
• 150g butter,
• 30g lard,
• 1 egg,
• 100g sugar,
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder,
• 1/2 package of vanilla sugar (originally: scent).

Filling:

• 750g sour apples,
• 250g sugar.

How to prepare:

1. Mix the flour with the baking powder. Add chopped butter and lard. In a separate bowl, beat the egg with the sugar. Combine the contents of both bowls. Knead the dough.
2. Peel, wash and shred the apples. Sprinkle with sugar and sauté.
3. In the meantime, transfer 2/3 of the dough to a greased and floured form. Bake for 25 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius.
4. Spread the warm "marmalade" of apples into the middle of the dough, and decorate the top with thin rolls from the rest of the dough. The recipe author also recommends spreading the top with milk and sugar. Bake until golden brown (another 20-25 minutes). Enjoy!