Apple Dumplings!

I confess that I have never made apple dumplings before tonight.
I do not know why I waited so long to make  them.
They are soooo delicious!

I will correct myself and say that my son and I made them.  It was his idea.

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Butter a 13x9x2 inch baking pan.

I made the pie dough from scratch (which is something I don't usually do).

2 cups of self rising flour
3/4 cup of Crisco shortening
1/2 cup of milk.

Cut the shortening into the flour with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk and stir with a fork until dough leaves sides of bowl. Turn dough onto floured wax paper and knead gently just until smooth. Roll out to an 18x12 inch rectangle. (Or as close as possible - I'm not very good at rolling out rectangles)

In the meantime, combine 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of water, 1/2 stick of butter, 1/4 t cinnamon and 1/4 t nutmeg in a large saucepan. Stir and cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and butter is melted.

Pick 6 apples from your tree. We used a peeler - slicer - corer and pealed, sliced and cored the apple. It looked like a little round accordion when we were finished.

Slice the crust into 6 pieces. Place an apple onto each section. Then shake a mixture of cinnamon/sugar onto the apples.  Lightly moisten the edges of the pastry with water and bring the corners up and over the apple. Pinch all  the edges together. My son made them look like big dough balls.

Place them into the baking dish and pour the prepared syrup mixture around the dumplings.

Bake for 45 minutes or until  golden brown.

If you don't have one of those apple peelers, you could just peel and core the apple . . . or peel and slice them. It will  still  taste the same - delicious!

 This is what they look like coming out of the oven.

 Yummy!

Very yummy with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

I was only going to eat half of one. But after the first bite, I couldn't. I ate the entire dumpling.

I like this better than apple pie and it is easier! I am thinking it would also be good using pears.

Try it. You'll like it!

Posted by  Janet Smart  on Creative Writing in the Blackberry Patch.