welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen welcome back to sunday morning
in the old cookbook show today we're
going to do something out of
the silent hostess a treasure book
put out by general electric in 1932
to promote their electric refrigerator
and this is this is a fantastic slice of
mid depression united states it really
shows the difference between the haves
and the have-nots in that time period
so today i'm going to make something
called the dutch apple cake and it
is a variation of the recipe preceding
it
called cottage pudding and so i'm going
to start out in the stand mixer yes
the stand mixer and i am going to
cream this butter
and yes a stand mixer because in 1932
this stand mixer had been on the market
for quite a while at that point and
even though people look at this and
think it's an expensive consumer product
and it was
kitchenaid sold out production
completely sold out production every
year during the depression
if they could make more they could have
sold more but they couldn't make any
more than they were already making
and the exact same thing happened with
these ge refrigerators
now 1932
this ge refrigerator cost around 187
us dollars at that point which adjusted
for inflation is about 3 500
in 2020 money so certainly
not an inexpensive item for that
refrigerator
and yet again ge couldn't keep them in
stock
they sold everyone that they could
produce and i i think that's a very
interesting thing because when i read
through the comments section when i do
these depression era recipes um
people have the impression that in the
great depression the economy completely
collapsed and everybody was broke and
nobody had a job and there was food
shortages and everything was a shortage
and while it was certainly bad for some
people um
there were just as many people who had
it really good
and they could afford to buy these
consumer products
so the butter and the sugar has creamed
together i'm going to add two
eggs into the mix and i'll mix in the
second egg
and in this bowl over here i had flour
and i mixed it with salt
and baking powder and i just mixed it
together just so it's all mixed together
really nicely
so i think the point of my story here
today is that for every
family horror story about how horrible
the great depression was
there's another family whose story is
kind of like didn't really notice
anything yeah we
maybe lost money on paper but day to day
nothing
changed and i think that's
kind of what we're living through right
now with the covid pandemic
there are a lot of people who have lost
their jobs
and they are scrambling to make ends
meet and there are other people that it
just hasn't affected
and i think we need to be conscious of
that and if you
know somebody that needs some help
please give them a hand and if you are
somebody who needs help
reach out and get it okay all of that's
creamed together really nicely so now we
alternate between
flour and milk so a couple scoops of
flour
and drizzle in some milk and just keep
going back and forth
okay let's get this into a pan i have an
8x8 cake pan buttered with a parchment
sling
and in goes the cake batter
now at this point it tells me that i
could smooth out the top and bake this
and call it a cottage pudding and put
like a lemon sauce on top
which sounds quite nice but i'm going to
make the dutch
apple cake so i've sliced up an apple
and we're going to dot those apples on
top
okay sliced up apples doesn't say how to
place them
you could try to do it artfully or you
could just
get them on to the top of the cake i'm
pretty happy just getting them onto the
top of the cake
next on it says just sprinkle with some
sugar
sprinkle on some cinnamon
and then dot with little pieces of
butter
it doesn't say how many and now i bake
this in a moderate oven for 40 to 45
minutes
now you're probably asking why such a
simple
simple cake recipe is in a refrigerator
cookbook
the whole idea is that you're supposed
to take the cake after you've made it
stick it in the fridge until you're
ready to bake it later that day
this was being touted as a
time saving measure really just a way to
spread out your day so that you're not
scrambling around supper time to get
dinner on the table
hey clay hey jules hey friends that
looks like that might need a fork
might need a fork let's see
that's a great picture 1932
full color plate ge yeah why why what's
with ge
doing a cookbook that's not a
usually it's it's it's you know a
community cookbook that's not a
community cookbook um
the time saving new device of the
refrigerator ah
how lovely yes so these are all recipes
that somehow use the refrigerator the
idea with this cake is
that you could mix it up after breakfast
when you've got a moment
mmm stick it in the fridge all day and
then and then make it later and then
cook it later and then did you do that
no okay i'm just wondering because i
would have thought that i i
don't know that that anyway i it's a
good cake though it is good
i'm in i would i would you know did you
is there cinnamon in or just on the top
i might have tossed cinnamon in it in
hindsight definitely good
this is one of those cakes that is i
mean
it's plain
but it's it's a basic white cake it's
it's meant to be that thing that you eat
after supper it doesn't have to be
extravagant it doesn't
it just it's a meal yeah what a surprise
we're gonna have it with tea yeah it
just ends the meal and it's and it gives
you a smile
it is but it's also super fun because
the base recipe
don't have apples throw in some pears
toss in a few raspberries
you could you could adjust it you can do
whatever flavors you want according to
you know the liquid content of your
fruit yeah it is the base
of great cake so you know do with it as
you choose
make it your own as the phrase goes yep
thanks for stopping by
stay safe see you again soon
you
