Sunday Vintage Recipe Roulette: Rosy Apple Crumble Pie, from Heinz Ketchup's Red Magic Recipes

Feeling rundown? Listless? Maybe you're not getting enough ketchup, Barb.

If you don’t already follow Mid-Century Menu, you should. How else are you going to find out that Heinz made a whole cookbook of ketchup shenanigans called Red Magic Recipes? They posted this one a few days ago:

The blog isn’t active, but the recipe archives are well worth a look!

You’d better believe I rushed right to Bookfinder and located what is apparently the only print copy available for sale. Fortunately and thanks to MCM’s post, I don’t have to wait until it arrives to make this pie, with A LOT of red magic in it — a half cup.

As TikTok darling B. Dylan Hollis has pointed out, a lot of the corporate cookbooks of yesteryear were written from the standpoint of “we need to sell more product”, and not from any culinary vision or dedication to craft. Baked bean pizza, tuna rings…but on the other hand, sometimes it legitimately works. The Hellmann’s Nog and Hellmann’s Snickerdoodles with Hellmann’s and marshmallow Glaze? It was excellent, I swear…and that one is from 2022.

And after the delectable success of vintage Japanese Napolitan spaghetti with ketchup, I’m feeling lucky. Let’s make it!

This recipe calls for a baker’s choice of pastry, so I went with my old standby from Four and Twenty Blackbirds on Food52, which I keep as pastry crumbs a la King Arthur Baking, so I can whip up a crust in record time. The recipe as written is incredibly flaky and easy, but I switch it up just a bit to make it a smidge lower calorie — instead of a whole stick of butter, I use 4 T butter and 4 T of Neufchatel cheese. It takes a little bit of practice to keep from overmixing, and it’s never going to be as flaky as all butter, but I love it, and it cuts a few calories while adding a little calcium.

(I also love my pie crust rolling bag thingie from King Arthur. Makes pie easy as…well, you know.)

The filling could not be easier — it’s just apples, lemon, and ketchup. Even though they don’t know who I am, America’s Test Kitchen agrees with me that precooking the apples a bit before filling the crust makes a better pie, and I put them in the microwave for 6 minutes. Then, because I was pretty concerned that this might be truly awful, I made a little parchment barrier wall and only made enough of this filling to make up 1/4 of the pie, with traditional filling in the rest.

I’ve only lost 1/4 of my ever-loving mind.

I went with my grandmother’s crosshatched fork-pressed edge for nostalgia’s sake and for time period appropriateness, even though the very idea of this ketchup pie would horrify her.

I gotta tell y’all, this thing reeks of ketchup even in its diminished state. My earlier optimism is shaken, cracking, under waves of decidedly savory vinegar and tomato. Right now, my poor, innocent kitchen smells like a Wendy’s at low tide.

After it’s been in the oven for 40 minutes, though…

I laugh wryly at what I thought was a strong ketchup smell such a short time ago. When heated, the scent is wafting through the whole house, a hilariously weird aroma hanging around the edges of rooms like a poltergeist who hasn’t quite got the hang of things.

But once it cools a bit and I slice it…

I can still smell nothing but ketchup and am now very much alarmed.

It looks really nice, though, once you get past the smell! It’s homestyle, of modest thickness, and the crumble topping really is more crummy than streusel-y, but that’s not always bad. There’s a definite red tint. How could this taste like anything but dipping a McD’s pie in a souffle cup of the red stuff?

Well…

I’m just going to admit it. This might actually be my new go-to recipe, with a little modification. The topping is beautifully crisp, no soggy bottomed crust, and although there’s a faint whiff of ketchup at the beginning of the first bite, it blends seamlessly into the rest of the flavors and textures quickly, and then it’s just a solid, sweet-tart sweetheart of a pie. It has a showstopper character, though. I’ve never tasted anything quite like it.

So why does it work, in addition to ketchup’s natural mellowing agents? Sure, tomatoes are technically fruits, but that doesn’t count for much in my book — so are zucchini and jalapenos. I think the crumble topping is critical in this case, because the sugar and flour cook into the fruit a bit, for a balanced sweet and cinnamon-y flavor. But I think the key is that the ketchup’s acidity and saltiness do some serious red magic on the apples. Even my husband, who was extremely opposed to this hellish pairing, thought it was delicious. It’s just a good idea, even though it sounds like a supremely bad one. I do think there’s just a bit too much ketchup, and if I make it again, I’ll reduce that part to a scant 1/3 of a cup, or perhaps I’ll just add about 3 more chopped apples. That ratio would be enough to keep things rosy and tart, and hopefully smooth out that tiny hint of too much first-bite ketchup scent.

In short, it’s a thrifty, easy trick for a unique but still familiar dessert. It would be especially effective if you happen to be baking with apples that aren’t at the peak of season, or not tart enough. And imagine, just imagine how fun it will be to see the look on everyone’s faces when they ask what the secret ingredient is…

and you tell them!