Baked Apple Dumplings

These cute and sweet Baked Apple Dumplings are little gifts of love. A piece of home sweet home wrapped up like a present, just begging to be opened. Drizzled with cider sauce, wrapped in buttery pastry dough, a Baked Apple Dumpling is your own personal apple pie. Inside each dumpling you'll be surprised to find an oh so sweet filling in the middle. Trust me, if you present these dumplings for dessert to your guests, they'll be quite the show stopper. Talk about an impressive display of your homemaking skills! After all, the Seven Dwarfs were bursting with joy when Snow White said she could whip up a batch of these. And if you try them, you'll see why.

This recipe will be easier for someone who is comfortable in the kitchen and has made pies before, but my instructions are detailed enough that even a beginner shouldn't have trouble making these. The first thing I would suggest is making the Cider sauce and the pastry dough a day or two ahead of when you plan to bake the dumplings.

Just imagine sitting down to a breakfast smorgasbord with  these
 Baked Apple Dumplings as the star of the show.

This pastry dough is made from scratch, using a food processor to do most of the work for you, which is really nice. A combination of chilled butter and shortening are processed into the flour until the contents look like wet sand. This took me a good couple minutes, stopping periodically to scrape down the sides. My food processor is on the small side and a bit wimpy, so if you have a large capacity one it probably won't take that long. Just remember 'wet sand'.  Then, you'll combine the contents in a bowl with buttermilk (use store bought, not homemade clabbered milk) and mix it together. You should have a sticky dough. Dump it out and knead it on a floured surface a few times and it should be soft and lost it's stickiness. Work quickly, you don't want the dough to become warm. Shape it according to the directions, wrap it and put it in the fridge right away.

When I make the cider sauce, I keep my Pyrex 2 cup glass measuring cup next to the stove. While reducing the syrup down to the correct consistency, I periodically pour the contents from the pot into the measuring cup until it measures to 1 and 1/2 cups.

As for the apples themselves, use Golden Delicious, as suggested in the recipe. If you want to try a different type, be sure it's a crisp apple. Some apples, like McIntosh, can't take the heat of the oven and will just turn into mush. A strong apple must be used. I tried Ambrosia apples (which are my new favorite, and shown in the photographs below), and they were still hard after the recommended baking time. I had to cover the dumplings with foil so they wouldn't burn and bake for an additional 14 minutes before they were soft.

I used my teaspoon to cut the core and seeds out of these apples. Do you see the hole at the bottom of the one in the
center? No worries, I just plugged it with a small piece of apple.

The apples in this recipe are cored and cut at the equator. This way they are stable and won't wobble, spilling the filling. Use a melon baller or metal round teaspoon to remove the seeds and core. Be sure to remove stems, and if you don't like the remnants of the blossoms, you can remove them too. Just be sure to fill the whole with small slices of apple so the filling won't leak. I will sometimes get carried away with removing too much core and create a whole in the bottom. If you do this, no biggie, just fill it in with small bits of apple as mentioned above. No matter how fast I work, inevitably the first apples I have done are turning brown by the time I finish with the rest. Not to worry, it won't affect taste once they are baked. but I still try to work quickly anyway.

When I'm ready to assemble the dumplings, I have my filling already made and my dough just out of the fridge. Using some elbow grease, I roll it out cold on a lightly floured surface. Using a pizza cutter, I'll divide the dough into four equal parts. It may split apart at the edges, but this is okay, you can mush it back together once you wrap the apple halves. It's so much easier to work with cold dough.

To avoid the dough sloughing off the apples in the oven, lightly apply the egg wash around the edges of your dough square and make sure you pinch, crimp and smooth the edges together well. I'll even smoosh some thicker parts of dough (usually on top) to thinner parts of the apple (tends to be the bottom) for a more even distribution. Check the bottoms for holes in the dough. Don't forget to apply egg wash and cinnamon sugar to the tops before popping them in the oven! (Ask me how I know...)

Make sure you have some vanilla ice cream on hand to serve with these amazing dumplings. And please let me know how your experience goes with this recipe. I'd love to hear your feedback. I hope you find the end results worth the effort. Enjoy!

Equipment needed:  A food processor, rolling pin, small rounded scoop, and a baking sheet. Pizza cutter helpful but not necessary.

Apple Dumplings

by The Goldilocks Kitchen

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 20 to 25 minutes

Keywords: bake dessert apple pie American fall

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Ingredients (8 servings)

Dough

• 2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces and chilled
• 5 tablespoons vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2 inch pieces and chilled
• 3/4 cup cold buttermilk

Apple Dumplings

• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, sofened
• 3 tablespoons golden raisins, chopped
• 4 Golden Delicious apples
• 2 egg whites, lightly beaten

Instructions

1. Pulse flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a food processor until combined. Scatter butter and shortening over flour mixture and process until mixture resembles wet sand. You may have to stop periodically and scrape down the sides. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in buttermilk until a sticky dough forms. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead briefly until dough is soft and not sticky. Press dough into 8 by 4 inch rectangle, using a ruler to measure. Cut in half, wrap each half tightly in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

2 Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

3. In second bowl, combine softened butter, raisins, and 3 tablespoons of the cinnamon sugar mixture from step 2. Peel apples and halve through center equator. Remove the core with a melon baller or metal rounded teaspoon and pack butter mixture into each apple half.

3. On lightly floured surface, roll each dough half into approximately a 12 inch square. Cut each 12 inch square into four equal squares. Working one at a time, lightly brush edges of dough square with egg white and place apple, cut side up, in center of each square. Gather dough one corner at a time on top of apple, crimping edges to seal. Using pairing knife, cut vent hole in top of each dumpling.

4. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Arrange dumplings on prepared baking sheet, brush tops with egg white, and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar. Bake until dough is golden brown and juices are bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on baking sheet 10 minutes. Serve with cider sauce and ice cream.

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Cider Sauce

by The Goldilocks Kitchen

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Keywords: dessert

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Ingredients (1 and 1/2 cups)

Cider Sauce

• 1 cup apple cider
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

1. Combine the cider, water, sugar and cinnamon in a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat until thickened and reduced to 1 and 1/2 cups.

2. Off heat, whisk in the butter and lemon juice. Drizzle over apple dumplings and serve. (If making this ahead, refrigerate after step 1. Follow step 2 just before you're ready to serve, warming the sauce on the stove top first while the dumplings are baking.)

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