Baked Sweet Potatoes and Apples

Recipe No. 629 from the U.S. Army’s WWII cookbook — Vegetables. Quantities are exactly as printed, for 100 servings; a scaled-down 8-serving version is in the notes.

Ingredients

• Potatoes, sweet — 32 pounds
• Salt — 2½ ounces (5 mess kit spoons)
• Water, boiling — as needed

Sugar, brown — 2½ pounds (2 No. 56 dippers)

• Apples, tart, sliced — 8 pounds (8 No. 56 dippers)
• Butter — 6 ounces (¼ mess kit cup)

Directions

1. Wash sweet potatoes; pare and cut into crosswise slices ¼ inch thick.
2. Cover sweet potatoes with boiling salted water. Cover and heat to boiling point; reduce heat and simmer until tender. Drain.
3. Arrange potato slices overlapping one another in well greased baking pans.
4. Sprinkle with salt and ½ the sugar.
5. Cover potato slices with a layer of sliced apples.
6. Sprinkle apples with remaining sugar. Place pieces of butter on top of apples.
7. Bake in moderate oven (350° F.) until apples are tender.

Notes

SCALED TO 8 SERVINGS (the original is ÷12.5): Potatoes, sweet — 2 lb 9 oz Salt — about 1¼ tsp Water, boiling — to taste Sugar, brown — 3¼ oz Apples, tart, sliced — 10¼ oz Butter — ½ oz

— TM 10-412, Army Recipes (War Department, 15 August 1944), recipe No. 629, Vegetables. Army measures: 1 No. 56 dipper = 1 qt; 1 No. 55 dipper = 1¾ qt; 1 mess kit cup = 1½ pints.