In Send Judah First, author Brian C. Johnson not only opens a powerful and heart-wrenching door into Judah’s life, but also into Belle Grove’s kitchen where Judah served as head cook from 1817-1836. In the back of Send Judah First,there are 35 recipes for dishes that Judah likely would have prepared for her enslavers. Johnson acknowledges that Judah’s recipes would not have contained specific amounts of ingredients–they likely were not even written down. Cooking, for the uneducated enslaved woman, would have been a repeated task of trial and error until she mastered dishes to her master’s tastes.

Today, we’re sharing one of the author’s favorite recipes: Apple Pan Dowdy. Ingredient quantities have been added for baking convenience!

Ingredients

6 medium size tart apples

¼ tsp nutmeg

½ c molasses

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ c. (+ 1 ½ tbs) butter

2 tsp. baking powder

1 c. flour

¾ c milk

Directions

• Preheat oven to 325°degrees
• Mix the molasses, cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Add peeled, cored, and sliced apples to the bowl and coat with molasses mixture.
• Place coated apples in a buttered deep-dish baking dish.
• Melt the ½ c. of butter and mix with milk in a small bowl.
• Mix baking powder, salt and flour in a medium bowl.
• Add butter and milk mixture to the dry ingredients. Then cut in 1 ½ tbs butter.
• Spread butter, milk, and flour mixture over coated apples.
• Bake for 30 minutes.
• Break the topping with a fork, working it in among the apples.
• Put back in the oven for another 30 minutes.
• Serve with cream