Taste of the past Recipe

by Maxine Troxell

Fall is in full swing. It’s a great time to bake some of your favorite deserts.  Apple Dumplings are a favorite in the Thurmont area.  An apple dumpling is a pastry filled with apple, cinnamon, and occasionally raisins. Apples are peeled and cored, placed on a portion of dough, then filled with cinnamon and sugar. Then the dough is folded over the apples, and the dumplings are baked until tender.  The recipe below is from the 1974 Maryland Grange Cookbook.

Apple Dumplings

Never-Fail Pie Crust Recipe (or use your favorite pie dough recipe)

Mix together:

4 cups flour         1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt               1 tablespoon sugar

Add 1 ¾ cups Crisco and cut into flour mixture with a knife until the mixture resembles small pieces the size of peas. Using fingers is OK!

Mix together:

1 egg (beaten with a fork)

½ cup cold water       

1 tablespoon vinegar

Directions

Sprinkle liquid slowly over flour mixture while working dough together with your fingers just until the dough can be shaped into a ball—don’t over mix. Divide into 4 balls, which is enough to make 2 double crust pies. One of these balls should make 2 apple dumplings or more, if apples are small.

If you don’t want to use all the dough at one time, put in an air-tight container and store in refrigerator for several days.

Peel and core apples and wrap a whole apple with dough (I like to slice it into a few pieces rather than wrap the whole apple).  Put wrapped dumplings in a pan.

Pour syrup (recipe below) down over the dumplings in the pan. Should have the syrup about ¼-inch deep around the dumplings. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.  When only 10 mins. are remaining to bake, drizzle some syrup over the dumplings and finish baking.  If you have no left over syrup, spoon some from the pan that’s around the dumplings.

Syrup: (enough for 8 dumplings)

½ cup light brown sugar            1 cup sugar                       

½ stick butter (not margarine)              1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons flour

Mix all ingredients together.  Add 1 cup water.  Cook for 1 minute.