Bloggers about retro food unite today under the leadership of Yinzerella at Dinner is Served 1972 to make a pie recipe published before 1985. Each of us found and scanned a recipe and Yinzerella sent us each one to try.

My assignment for Cottage Cheese – Apple Pie, sent in by Yesterday’s Menus, came from “Delicious Dairy Dishes,” by Meta Given and Ruth Cooper (1937), a booklet of recipes sponsored by Borden-Wieland.

Booklets showing how customers could use particular products were popular in the 1930s. I have a bookshelf filled with the ones my grandmother saved for appliances (the Frigidaire) as well as foods (Planters Hi-Hat peanut oil; Virginia’s finest!).

“Delicious Dairy Dishes” included menus for each recipe.

I didn’t have time to make the grapefruit-avocado salad and other accompaniments (who has that kind of appetite any more, anyway?) but I did make the pie. For the crust, I used a recipe from “The Elegant But Easy Cookbook” by Marion Fox Burros and Lois Levine (1960), as I couldn’t find one in my collection of 1930s books. With sugar, apples and cinnamon in the ingredients, this pie skews more sweet than savory. Its custard base puts a new spin on that old American favorite.

Check out all the other Pieathlon pies posted today and happy eating! Click the links to see what others made.

• The Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en experimented with Swiss Pie With Hot Dogs!
• Pizza Peach Pie brought to us by Mandee at Vintage Recipe Cards
• Saucy Cherie whipped up Prune Whip Pie
• Our old friend Dr. Bobb of Dr. Bobb’s Kitschen brings us Mincey Peach Pie!
• Pasta Cheese Pie is the dish of the day at Yesterday’s Menus
• Ashley over at A Pinch of Vintage made Pecan Pie (I think with ketchup in it…?)
• There’s Blueberry Cream Pie over at Bittersweet Susie
• The BattenburgBelle tried French Onion Pie
• Kelli’s Kitchen baked a White Christmas Pie
• Retro Recipe Attempts attempted Steak & Mushroom Pie
• Taryn Retro Food For Modern Times traveled to Belgium for Belgian Onion Pie
• Jenny made a Magic Cream Pie over at Silver Screen Suppers
• Poppy of Grannie Pantries  offers a Brandy Alexander Pie
• A Book of Cookrye serves up the mysteriously named Gowanda Pie
• RetroRuth at The Mid-Century Menu tried out a Cheese Pie
• Sarah at Directionally Challenged Cooking baked a Fiesta Almond Peach Pie

Cottage Cheese – Apple Pie (1937)
Makes 1 pie

Crust (adapted from “The Elegant but Easy Cookbook”)

Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cut in with a pastry blender 1/2 cup butter until the pieces are the size of small peas. Sprinkle (approximately) 4 tablespoons of ice water, one at a time, over the mixture. Mix with a fork. Continue adding water until the dough is moistened. It is of good consistency when it does not stick very much to your hands when you begin to form it into a ball. Make a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling out to about 1/4 inch thickness and fitting it into a pie tin.

Pie
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coffee cream [I used half and half], scalded
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup cottage cheese
1 1/2 cups thinly-sliced apples
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a bowl, beat the eggs slightly. Add the 1/2 cup of sugar, salt, coffee cream, milk, vanilla,, and cottage cheese.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the sliced apples with the 1/4 cup of sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, adding more sugar if needed.
3. Turn the apples into the pastry-lined pie tin. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.
4. Reduce the heat to 325 degrees. Add the cottage cheese mixture to the pie and continue baking 40 minutes or until the mixture sets and is a delicate brown in color.