homemade...apple dumplings

Ever since we received a bushel of apples from our neighbors I’ve intended to make apple dumplings. Last week was just too full of activities. I made the pie dough and tossed it into the freezer until I had time to enjoy making these treats.

I finally got around to making the dumplings yesterday and wanted to put together a little tutorial/recipe to share. Mine had some issues, and I almost decided to scrap the tutorial and wait until I had a chance to refine my crust recipe. Then, Jude and I shared one today after our lunch, and it was so good. So despite some structural issues, I just have to share this in all it’s wabi sabi-ness. I’ll also share some ways to avoid some of the issues we had.

I used my recipe for a double pie crust. (Yeah, this is reveal #2.)

We soaked four apples and Jude polished them.

Then peel…apple peels look like worms according to Jude.

Then core…we do a lot of pretend construction work when we bake and you would be surprised what a 3 year old can do with a little help. The corer is definitely like a little drill.

Cut in half horizontally so apples stand flat.

Mix ½ cup sucanat, 3T butter, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of nutmeg (use freshly ground if you can). (measuring cups and spoons are dumptrucks in our kitchen)

Blend with a fork until it is a coarse mixture.

I cut slices off the dough ball I froze after I let it thaw out a bit.

Place between two sheets of parchment paper or wax paper.
Roll into a larger circle that you can put your apple into 2 ½ times or so. (good measuring lesson opportunity here.)

Place apple in center of dough circle.

Stuff core with butter sucanat mixture (Jude did the stuffing…into the apples and into his mouth;)

Wrap dough around apple.

No worries if you have a bit of a hole…as jude said, “just mend it.”

Place on parchment in a baking dish.

Bake at 425F for 10 minutes.

Then reduce the oven temperature to 375F for 25 minutes.

We prefer our apple dumplings without the syrup, but you could also make a syrup with ½ cup of water, ½ cup of sucanat, 3 T of butter, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Bring this to a boil, and then let it cool a bit. This can be served on the dumplings after they are cooked or you can also bake your dumplings in the baking dish with the syrup but add 10 minutes to your baking time.

Our dumplings cracked a bit and some (not much) of the butter/sucanat mixture oozed out. My crust recipe might have been part of my problem. I use butter not shortening and that makes the dough a little less flexible. I also used a cup of whole grain flour that was not finely ground. You might try whole wheat pastry flour.

The other thing that I have heard is that you should not use red delicious apples because they won’t hold their shape and the crust will crack. We used empire apples, but they did not hold their shape either. A good winter apple would probably work better.

But despite the crust cracking a bit, they were delicious…delicious…delicious.

Enjoy!