Baked Honey Apples (1918)
Reader ratingsBaked honey apples from a Pittsburgh club’s cookbook of the First World War: whole apples scored and cored, baked in honey syrup thickened with a little flour, dotted with oleomargarine and dusted with cinnamon.
- Recipe makes
- 4 baked apples
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Most of the time is in the oven. Baste the apples twice while they bake, and let them stand 5 minutes before serving.
Baked honey apples in their syrup.
The story behind the recipe
A war cookbook could save sugar and butter in one dish, and the Twentieth Century Club of Pittsburgh did it in three lines of method. Its War Time Cook Book of 1918 bakes apples in honey where Fannie Merritt Farmer’s 1896 baked apples call for sugar, and dots them with oleomargarine. Sugar and butter were both things the wartime food campaign asked households to spare.
A club cookbook with two forewords
The book opens with forewords from Howard Heinz, the Federal Food Administrator of Pennsylvania, and W. D. George, the administrator for Allegheny County. Its recipes come in runs, each closed by the name of the club member who sent them. Baked Honey Apples opens page 107, in the run that ends with a plum pudding and the name of Mrs. Wm. M. Hall, and it is short: six ingredients, no oven heat and no time, only “bake until soft.”
The recipe names the fat outright, with no talk of substitutes. The flour gives the syrup a little body as it bakes.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
The oven temperature and times come from modern honey-baked apple recipes. Scoring means cutting a shallow line through the skin around the middle of each apple, which lets it expand without splitting. Choose apples that keep their shape when baked. Stick margarine stands in for the oleomargarine, and butter can replace it.
Why Did Butter Make Margarine Expensive? tells the story of the tax and the cookbooks that worked around it. The Hard Sauce (1918) from the same year melts over the apples hot from the oven.
4 apples ½ tablespoon flour ¼ cup water ⅓ cup honey 1 tablespoon oleomargarine Cinnamon
Score and core apples and arrange in baking dish. Mix flour, water and honey and pour over apples. Dot with oleomargarine, sprinkle with cinnamon and bake until soft.
Recipe makes: 4 baked apples
Ingredients
For 4 baked apples. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 4 baked apples.
- Medium baking apples, such as Rome, Braeburn or Jonagold4
- All-purpose flour1 1/2 tsp
- Water1/4 cup
- Honey1/3 cup
- Stick margarine, in small pieces1 tbsp
- Ground cinnamon1/2 tsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 4 medium baking apples, such as Rome, Braeburn or Jonagold
- 1½ tsp all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup water
- ⅓ cup honey
- 1 tbsp stick margarine, in small pieces
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
Equipment
- Apple corer or small sharp knife
- Baking dish about 8 inches square
- Small bowl and spoon
Instructions
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
With the corer or knife, take the core out of each apple, leaving a hole all the way through. Cut a shallow line through the skin all the way around the middle of each apple. Stand the apples in the baking dish.
In the small bowl, stir the flour into the water until smooth, then stir in the honey. Pour it over and around the apples, letting some run into the centers.
Dot the tops with the stick margarine and sprinkle with the cinnamon.
Bake for 45 to 60 minutes, spooning the syrup over the apples two or three times, until a knife slides easily into the thickest part and the syrup is bubbling and slightly thickened.
Let the apples stand 5 minutes, then serve warm with the syrup from the dish.
Nutrition
210calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 4 baked apples
- Servings
- 4
Estimated per apple from USDA FoodData Central values for the listed ingredients.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Use a dish that holds the apples snugly; the syrup should come a little way up their sides.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Baking time depends on the size and kind of apple, so test with a knife from 40 minutes. Leftovers keep for 3 days in the refrigerator and can be eaten cold or warmed in a low oven. Contains wheat; many margarines contain milk.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After the Twentieth Century Club of Pittsburgh, War Time Cook Book (Pittsburgh, 1918), Baked Honey Apples
Recipe details
- Course
- Dessert
- Dish family
- Desserts & Sweets
- Region
- American
- Source decade
- 1910s
- Main ingredient
- Fruit
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Everyday meal
- Season
- Autumn