John Adams Favorite Dessert

"Apple Pan Dowdy
Apples, like molasses, were a standby in New England Desserts. John Adams showed his preference for Apple Pan Dowdy by having it on Independence Day...
Flour
Salt
Shortening
Ice water
Melted butter
Sugar
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Apples
Molasses
To make the pastry: Sift 1 1/2 cups flour with a dash of salt. Blend in 1/2 cup shortening until the mixture is mealy. Sprinkle a little ice water over the mixture, just enough to hold the dough together. Roll the pastry out, brush with 1/4 cup melted butter, and cut pastry in half. Place the halves on top of each other and cut again. Repeat until you have 16 separate but equal pieces of pastry piled on top of each other, then chill them a full hour. Roll the pastry once again, cut in half, and line the bottom of the baking dish with one half. Save the other half for the top. Keep both on ice while making the filling.To make the filling: Mix 1/2 cup sugar with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Peel and core 10 large apples. Cut then into thin slices. Mix the apples with sugar-spice mixture and place in pastry-lined dish. Combine 1/2 cup molasses (or maple syrup) with 3 tablespoons melted butter and 1/4 cup water. Pour this over the apples. Cover with the top pastry layer and seal. Place in a preheated hot (400 degree F.) oven for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to low (325 degrees F.). After reducing the heat, "dowdy" the dish by cutting the crust into the apples with a sharp knife. Return dish to oven and bake a full hour. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream or with heavy cream or whipped cream. Serves 6."
---Presidents' Cookbook (p. 51-52)

So, maybe I didn't need to put the whole recipe on here, but who knows! Maybe someone that reads this will want to make it. I chose this recipe for a few reasons. One, a couple of nights ago, Jill and I made Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Dumplings. We had a colonial feast and it was really great! Although our dumplings took a couple of hours to prepare and bake, they didn't turn out too bad at all. So when I saw this recipe, I appreciated all of the work that it took to make these things. The recipe seems very similar to our apple dumplings, although this is more of a casserole form. Or I guess it would be more of an apple crisp. I looked up the definition of "dowdy" because I didn't know what it meant. In the recipe it says "dowdy" the dish by cutting the crust into the apples. In the Oxford English Dictionary it defines dowdy as "(of a person, especially a woman, or their clothes) unfashionable and unstylish in appearance". I guess cutting the crust down into the apples would make it look unfashionable and messy. I think a lot of the Colonial dishes seem to make things more complicated than necessary. I think today we wouldn't cut the crust down into the apples, and most of our recipes do not call for us to lower the temperature after ten minutes like this one and our apple dumpling recipe.