Cortland apples are an heirloom variety from 1898, and they are my favourite cooking apples. They make a thick, sweet sauce that needs little extra sweetening. Grandma D. would take 18 Cortland apples, peel them and cook them into a chunky sauce. It was delicious!! I leave the skins on and put them through a fruit sieve for a smoother, pink sauce. Mom made a big bowl of applesauce every other day, and we had it for dessert most weeknights during apple season. We usually had it with graham flour muffins, but once in a while, we had it with gingerbread.
Mom baked pies, muffins, cornbread, and biscuits from scratch, but cakes were always made from a Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines mix. I don't remember having a "scratch" cake until I was an adult. Cake mixes became widely available in the 1950s, and gingerbread was one of the first available flavours.
I remember the first meal we had with my brother Mark and his new wife, Cindy, in the mid-1980s. She made gingerbread and applesauce for dessert, but her cake was exceptional. After four decades, I finally asked her for the recipe.
Interestingly, it was from her "old faithful" Betty Crocker cookbook, no cake mix involved.
The method was very simple. Dump all the ingredients into a bowl and beat for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. I made the whole wheat version, which has a little less sugar.
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