Baking with apples: some history and recipes

People have been eating apple pies or tarts across Europe for at least 700 years, the Romans had imported apples from the middle East to Europe.The first recorded recipe comes from, England written in the 14th century, in those days the pie did not contain any sugar or honey and the pastry was only used as a container and not eaten. Accidentally these pies were called coffins!

As apple pies those days contained a variety of spices including saffron that had to be imported and was expensive. It is now thought that the lack of sugar was due to a question of taste more than cost or lack of availability. According to records of the time in the 16th century apple pies contained sugar and their pastries could be eaten.

 Some rights reserved by Matt McGee

The love of apples and baked products containing apples was taken by the British to the New World where there were not native apple trees, but soon the seeds were imported and orchards started to grow. Apple pies were made with fresh apples when available otherwise dried apples were used. Apple pies were very popular in the American colonies already in the 18th century. The Dutch have also been making apple pies for many centuries, probably more similar to the old style English apple pie containing lots of spices. You often find lots of cinnamon in Dutch apple pie. While the Austrians like to make Apple Strudel, the Italians and French tend to make a variety of apple tarts. And this is what we are going to make next.

Ingredients:

125 gr. sugar - 174 gr. sugar - 2 eggs - 1 lemon - a pinch of salt - 200 gr.
flour - gr. 50 potato starch - 1 packet of yeast - 3 golden delicious apples



How to prepare it:

Melt and the butter until creamy and add 125 gr. of sugar, the two eggs,
the grated rind of lemon and a pinch of salt. Knead
flour little by little, the starch and then the yeast, stirring
well. Pour the mixture into a baking mold, after you have buttered and floured it.
Place the apples that you have peeled and sliced thinly and
mixed with lemon juice t on top of the mixture
sprinkle all the remaining sugar. Bake on the bottom part of a preheated oven
at 190 degrees for 50 minutes. You can serve hot with cream or if you prefer it you can eat it cold. So delicious either ways.

And while you are in an Apple Pie baking (or eating?) mood, watch this award winning short documentary by Tim Duquette. An elderly woman  tells us her life story while baking a delicious apple pie.