7 Old Fashioned Apple Recipes from the 1800's

Would it be fall without apple recipes like apple pie, but have you ever wondered what apple recipes people used to eat?

As most of you know, I love old fashioned homemaking! I was born and raised in a Third World country, where we made things from scratch out of necessity. If we wanted an apple pie, there was no going to the store for a premade crust. Many times, I couldn’t even find apples so we would substitute with a native fruit that had a similar texture.

Now, no matter if you’re used to eating apple pies with premade crust or ones that didn’t quite taste like apple pie(because they weren’t really apples), nothing beats a real apple pie with a fresh pie crust all made from scratch!

There was a time in history when that was all you could get. If you wanted apple pie, you put in the work and made it right. Well, that may seem tedious, and perhaps a waste of time, think of how delicious “ The fruit of that labor“ was? Not to mention, it was naturally healthier.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we didn’t have to stop and think about whether or not this or that was a healthy choice, but it just was because that is all you could get?

Back in the 1800s, this is how it was for apple pies and many other apple recipes, however, the recipes did look a little different from ours today.

Since it is fall and the season for all the apple things, I thought it would be fun to find some old apple recipes from 1800 cookbooks to share with you. So grab your favorite warm beverage and a cozy blanket, and enjoy a peek into the past of old-fashioned apple recipes!

Old Apple Recipes

Apple-Sauce (1899)

A: 6 sour apples, peel, core and quarter, add ⅛ tsp. salt, ½ c water;
B: 3 tbsps. sugar, ⅛ tsp. cinnamon, grating nutmeg.

Cover A and simmer without stirring until apples are soft, add B, mix and press through a colander. Serve hot or cold.

The Hostess of Today (p. 99)

Apple Custard Pie or Pudding (1894)

1 quart of dry stewed apples
12 ounces of sugar
3 ounces of butter
8 yolks of eggs

Juice and rind on 1 lemon and nutmeg

The apples should be stewed with as little water as possible with the steam shut in. Mash them through a strainer. Cook the pulp over the fire with the sugar and butter in and then add the beaten yolks and flavor. Bake in crusts.

The American Pastry Cook (p. 16)

Apple Ice (1894)

To be served in combination with a frozen custard such as the proceeding three (Lemon Ice, Saratoga Ice Cups).

20 ounces of cored and sliced apples.
12 ounces of sugar.
1 quart of water.
1 lemon.

Use for this purpose only ripe and sweet apples. Make a boiling syrup of the sugar and a cupful of water and throw in the apple quarters or slices and the lemon – cover with a lid and simmer slowly till done without stirring or breaking. Strain out the apples and set them on ice. Add the balance of the water to the syrup and freeze it without much beating, then throw in the apples and finish the freezing. This makes a whitish ice. The apples should not be frozen hard.

The American Pastry Cook (p. 31).

Apple Float (1894)

1 pound of fine, mealy cooking apples pared and quartered.
Half cup of water.
1 lemon.
8 ounces of sugar.
1 ounce of butter.
2 whole eggs and 6 whites.
Clove or cinnamon extract.

Stew the apples with the water, sugar, lemon juice, and shaved or grated rind and the butter, in a saucepan with a lid, till they are tender. Rub the pulp through a sieve. Add the 2 eggs and cook the mixture 5 or 10 minutes till thick. Then cool, flavor, beat light and add the 6 whites of eggs whipped firm and beat 5 minutes more. Keep cold. Serve in saucers of custard.

The American Pastry Cook (p. 44)

Apple Pudding Boiled (1821)

Chop four ounces of Beef Suet very fie, or two ounces of Butter, Lard, or Dripping – but the suet makes the best lightest crust; put it on the paste board, with eight ounces of flour, and a saltspoonful of salt, mix it well together with your handsome and then put it all of a heap, and make a hole in the middle;; break one egg in it, stir it well together with you finger, and by degrees infuse as much water as will make it of a stiff paste: – roll it out two or three times with the rolling-pin, and then roll it large enough to receive thirteen ounces of Apples. It will look neater if boiled in a basin, well buttered, than when boiled in a pudding cloth well floured: boil it an hour and three quarters, – but the surest way is to stew the apples first in a stewpan, with a wineglassful of water, and then one hour will boil it. Some people like it flavoured with Cloves and Lemon Peel, and sweeten it with two ounces of Sugar.

GOOSEBERRIES, CURRANTS and RASPBERRIES, CHERRIES, DAMSONS, and VARIOUS PLUMS and FRUITS, are made into Puddings with the same Crust directed for APPLE PUDDINGS.

The Cooks Oracle (p. 518)

Apple Dumplings (1821)

Make paste the same as for apple pudding, divide it into as many pieces as you want Dumplings, peel the apples and core them, then roll out your paste large enough, and put in the apples; close it all round, and tie them in pudding cloths very tight, – one hour will boil them- and when you take them up, just dip them in cold water, and put them in a cup the size of the dumpling while you untie them, and they will turn out without breaking.

The Cooks Oracle (p. 518)

Common Apple Pie (1847)

Pare your apples, and cut them from the core. Line your dishes with pastes, and put it in the apple; cover and bake until the fruit is tender. Then take them from the oven, remove the upper crust, and put in sugar and nutmeg, cinnamon or rose water to your taste; a bit of sweet butter improves them. Also, to put in a little orange peel before they are baked, makes a pleasant variety. Common apple pies are very good to stew, sweeten, and flavor flavor the apple before they are put into the oven. Many prefer the seasoning baked in. All apple pies are much nicer if the apple is grated then seasoned.

Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book: Designed as a Supplement to her Treatise on Domestic Economy (p. 107)

Final Thoughts!

Wasn’t that delightful?! I think, it would be really neat to make some of them. Especially the Apple pie.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic to add some of these recipes that are nearly 200 years old to your own homemaking? What could be more old fashion than that!