Apple Dumplings

This has been a particularly tough few days of baking. I was on such a high after those Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie Bars, that I felt like I could bake anything. In the meantime, my Sourdough Starter failed, and I somehow botched a loaf of no-knead artisan bread. I try not to take it personally, but it’s impossible. I always feel a little down after a failed baking attempt. The reality is that there are a LOT of recipes on the internet, and you can’t always know which recipes you can trust until you try them. Sometimes, though, you can’t even really tell if you’ve done it right because you have no frame of reference.

I have never eaten an apple dumpling, so when I asked my husband for suggestions of something to bake for dessert last night and he suggested them, I jumped at the chance to do something new. I had a completely different expectation as to what an apple dumpling was. I honestly thought I’d just be wrapping an apple in pie crust and baking it. That’s not what it was, and the Pinterest pin from Just a Pinch I worked from had a beautiful photo, but terrible instructions. I probably should have read everything through first and used a different recipe, but I didn’t realize my mistake until it was too late. There was a lot of guesswork on this bake, but that doesn’t scare me…much…

The ingredient list was short and contained everything I value most in life and baking: apples, cinnamon, sugar, butter. I was going to wrap it all up in a homemade dough that I made easily in my food processor.

Step one: throw all the ingredients for the sauce together and bring to a boil for a minute or two then let cool. Fine. Easy. Done.

Step two: Mix dry ingredients for dough, cut in shortening, add milk, bring dough together. (The recipe didn’t say to do it, but I chilled it while getting the apples prepped.) Quick. Painless.

Step three: Core the apples. Disaster.

Despite the cutesy, sped-up videos I posted on Facebook and Instagram (by the way, follow me on Facebook and Instagram!) I incurred the first of this year’s baking injuries. Pro tip: If something with a sharp edge falls, don’t try to catch it. It will not end well. That’s what happened to me. I tried to catch the peeler and it cut a nice slice into my knuckle. It was quite a setback as I tried to get myself cleaned up. Note to self–you need to buy Bandaids.

Anyway… It was getting late. I had to press on or we’d end up eating dessert at midnight. (Spoiler Alert: We ate dessert at midnight) With the apples finally cored, I was ready to roll out the dough. Disaster #2.

This dough was NOTHING like pie dough. Pie dough is stiff and sturdy. This dough was soft, delicate, and nearly disintegrated the first time I tried to roll it out. If you try this bake at home, know that it requires a lot of flouring. Flour your hands, your surfaces, your rolling pin, and do it in between each individual lump of dough. Or Else.

Side note: The dough makes enough per the recipe for 6 apples, and that amounts to 2.9-3 oz per dough ball. I weighed it out so each ball was even. It didn’t seem to me like I’d have any extra to cut out the pretty leaf decorations in the original picture that attracted me to that pin in the first place, and since I was behind schedule already, I skipped the decorative step. Looking back, I probably would have had plenty if I’d made the dough balls 2.8 and used the leftover to cut out the decorations.

Step 1: Carefully roll out the soft dough without it sticking to the rolling pin and ripping. Don’t worry so much about thickness, because you’ll fix that later.

Step 2: Put a cored apple stuffed with butter in the center and sprinkle the apple generously with cinnamon and sugar.

Step 3: Try to pick up the dough that’s hopefully not sticking to the board because you floured it well and form the dough around the apple without tearing.

If all of this sounds like I was getting a little frustrated at this point, you are not wrong. The recipe says “the dough is easy to work with.” The recipe lies. I guess in one sense, they mean that it’s pliable, unlike pie crust which can be hard to seal to one another, and that was true. This dough squished together pretty easily. From my experience in pies, I have a phobia of overworking pastry, so I didn’t want to touch it much as I tried to get it to form over the apple, but I definitely resorted to picking up each apple in my hands and just squishing the dough around the apple until I had sealed all the openings. It was really hard to get it even and not have any thin spots.

Next step: Pour the sauce over the top. This was also a little easier said than done. Perhaps it was a result of the extra cooling time while I was tending to my peeler wound, but I tried to pour a little over the first apple and it all came out in one semi-gelatinous glob. Great. I grabbed a spoon to try to spoon it over the others, and I kept nicking the dough and making holes. I grabbed a silicone basting brush and tried to paint the sauce on. That also made dents in the delicate pastry if I wasn’t careful, but that worked marginally better.

At some point, I gave up on perfection of this recipe and decided to settle for done. And sleep. It was almost midnight by the time I got these babies in the oven.

When I took them out of the oven, the pan goo was hot and bubbly. I regret that I was not ready to immediately snap a photo so I could show you how delicious that looked! The dumplings had cracked, so they definitely weren’t perfect, but the smell in the house was heaven.

When I was setting up to make these, I was concerned that the apple wouldn’t get soft, so I used Macintosh apples, because I know how those react with heat and I knew they’d have the best chance of being soft. They certainly were. They were almost a little too soft, though I don’t know if that’s due to the apple itself or because the outer part of the dumpling cracked. The Macintosh was so soft, it almost melted away!! The soft texture of the apple was nearly indistinguishable from the softness of the dumpling dough. If I make dumplings again (probably trying a different recipe), I would maybe use a slightly harder baking apple. I still want to be able to get a spoon through it, but I’d like the apple to hold up a bit better.

I can’t complain about the taste! I knew they would taste delicious! It was a bit late to be eating our dessert, but nothing beats warm apple and cinnamon with a scoop of vanilla ice cream after a tough day of baking!! It was even better for breakfast the next day (without the ice cream, of course. Gotta keep it healthy!) I may, however, just prefer a slice of actual apple pie to the dumplings in terms of both taste and difficulty to make. To each his own!

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