Grandma’s Apple Dumplings Recipe

Don’t be afraid to try your own homemade apple dumplings.  Our Grandmothers made them weekly sometimes.  We can surely master the tricks and at least serve them to our families during the holidays to preserve the heritage they passed down to us.  I was raised in a family of incredible cooks.  On both sides of my family, my grandmothers came from very large families that were raised on farms.  They learned to cook with what they raised and harvested.  I learned to cook that way,  I can honestly say that I have cooked from scratch most of my life.

Pie crust can be tricky to make.  One of the best hints my grandmother taught me about making pastry was this.  You can do anything to the mixture until you add the water.  Once the water is added and worked into the dough, handle it as little as possible.  Use a fork to bring it all together then let it rest.  The second hint was to use ice water and to keep the shortening or lard cold.  She always used a pastry blender to mix the flour, salt, and fat together.  A fork was used after the water was being added….sometimes drops at a time.  You will learn over time when your dough is too dry or too wet.  It takes some experience, but is rewarding when you can serve a pie to your family that’s crust is so flaky it melts in their mouths!

Now, on to Apple Dumplings.  Apple Dumplings are actually very simple to put together.  The ingredients are usually found in almost everyone’s pantry.  You will need a deep baking dish as you will have a sauce that will bubble up as the dumplings bake.  Usually four dumplings in a 8 x 8 inch pan.  When I make these I usually  make twelve at a time, I bake them in a large deep roaster.

Pie Pastry:

6 cups of all purpose flour

1 cup, plus 3 tablespoons cold lard

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup ice water

In a large deep bowl combine flour, salt, and lard blending with a pastry blender. When blended, the mixture should look like small peas.  Make a deep well in the mixture.  Add the water a small amount at a time, pouring it in the well part.  With a fork, bring the flour mixture gradually into it.  Push the wet dough aside, and repeat the process until all the mixture is coated with water.  Take your hands, and bring the dough together.  Mixture should be soft, and hold together well.  It should not be crumbly or falling apart.  If it is still dry you can at this point still add ice water a teaspoon or so at a time.  Chill the dough for a few minutes, covering with plastic wrap.  Just the heat from your hands will warm the dough.  For Apple Dumplings you will need a piece of dough about the size of a small tangerine.   Place the dough on a lightly floured board.  Take your hand and press slightly in the middle then again crosswise, to press dough down slightly.  Taking a rolling pin, roll dough out into at least a 7 in circle.  The size of the circle will depend on how large your apples are so just base the size on that.  After placing the apple on the center of the dough, take a pastry brush and brush the outside edge with water or egg white to use to seal the dough.  Add the cinamon, sugar, butter, and cinamon candies.  Then take each side of the dough to the top of the apple.  You can do this however you wish, just make sure that the dough seals well.  The following is the basic dumpling recipe:

12 apples cored, not peeled.  ( preferably Granny Smith apples or your favorite baking apple)

1 cup of sugar mixed with two tablespoons of cinnamon, three tablespoons of flour and a dash of salt.

cinnamon candies (the Brach’s kind from Valentines)

12 pats of butter

Place the apple on the dough that you have already rolled out to the size of the apple.  Place a pat of butter in the bottom of the cored out place.  Add two tablespoons of the sugar mixture.  Add a teaspoon of cinnamon candies.  Fold all four sides of the dough up, pinching the sides to seal.  Repeat the process until you use all twelve apples.  Place in a deep baking dish, pour the sauce over all twelve apple dumplings.  Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, then turn the heat up to 425 degrees for 15 minutes. You can check for doneness by taking a fork and flaking the crust.  If it is flaky and the apple is done, the dumplings should be done.  The bottom crust will be slightly doughy but should be cooked through.  The sauce should be thickened to the consistency of a thick  maple syrup and bubbly.  If the dumplings are not cooked completely, cook them 15 minutes longer.  Of course if you cut the recipe in half you will adjust the cooking time accordingly but for the most part they will cook at least 45 minutes to an hour.

Extra dough left overs can be used for a couple of different things.  If there is enough left over for a pie crust.  Roll the dough out, place your crust in a pie pan or alluminum pie pan.  Wrap well and freeze.  My grandmother made cinnamon roll ups out of the extra dough.  Roll  the dough out into a large circle.  Take butter coat the entire circle with a thin layer.  Take the leftover cinnamon mixture and spread evenly over entire surface.  Start at one edge rolling the dough all the way to the other end forming a roll.  Cut the roll in 1 1/2 inch slices.  Place on a baking sheet or in a pie plate, allowing each piece to touch.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes until done.  These are great for breakfast with coffee.

Cinnamon Sauce:

3 cups of sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

4 cups of water

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 cup of butter

1/2 cup of cinnamon candies

mix dry ingredients together in medium size saucepan.  Add water and cinnamon candies.  Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer.  Simmer for five minutes.  Remove from heat, stir in the butter and set aside.

Serve the apple dumplings in a dessert bowl,  with sauce spooned over the top.  You can grate some fresh cinnamon or nutmeg on top.  You can also serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Extra sauce can be stored in a glass canning jar in the refrigerator and spooned over ice cream or french toast.

Growing up in Indiana Part Vl – Apple Harvest Time!

One of our favorite things to do when we were kids was to visit one of the local apple orchards in the fall of the year.  Apples were being harvested, cider was being made, and local orchards were very busy with the many customers excited to pick the awesome fruit!  At that time you were allowed to walk or drive through the orchard, and pick your own apples by the bushels full.  You would then go home to a hot kitchen to wash, peel, chop, cook, sieve, and can.  We would make the best applesauce you ever tasted.  It was always so much fun, we didn’t realize how much work it was.  We also would bake the most incredible apple dumplings that you ever put a fork into.  They would melt in your mouth, warm flaky pastry filled with apples, cinnamon, sugar and butter and a sweet cinnamon sauce that was unbelievable!  Amazing aroma’s would rise out of Grandma’s kitchen.  I still have her old wooden bowl that she made the pastry dough in.

We would usually go to the orchard on Saturday morning.  Sometimes it was just Grandma, myself and my two sisters.  Sometimes it was the whole family including all four of my siblings, my parents and grandparents.   It was a family event.  We would take the station wagon back into the orchard.  They would already know what kind of apples they would be picking.  Each cook has her favorite apple to use for certain sauces and pies.  We would usually pick Granny Smith, Jonathan, or Rome Beauty  for pies and baking, Golden Delicious , Granny Smith, and Gravestein for sauce.  The orchard owners would tell us just where to find what we were looking for.  We would look hard for just the right tree.  Ladders were everywhere, to use or we climbed the trees.  Most of the time the branches were low enough that we could pick them right off the trees.  That was the fun part.  The hard part was when we arrived home with four or five bushels of all sorts of apples.  Sometimes we would make a couple of trips because my Grandparents would store the apples in the basement during the winter.  My Grandparents were “old school” so to speak, she baked him a pie every morning.  If you layer the apples between sheets of newspaper, then store them in a cool dry place, they will keep most of the winter or longer.  You can have fresh fruit all winter long.

Another favorite thing to do at the orchard was to taste the amazing apple cider that the orchard owner would make.  They would make it into freezes, or you could get it cold or hot with cinnamon.  There would also be homemade pies that you could buy but we never did, because my Grandmother made the best pies you ever tasted.  It was a great family thing to do that we did…one I will never forget.  I have taken my children to the orchard many times when they were kids and today they are taking their children.  Indiana has hundreds, perhaps thousands of apple orchards.  There is surely one close by to where you live.  I was raised in Richmond, Indiana.  The ones I visited were Dodridge, Doughtrey, or Wesslers Orchards.  All of them were included in this story.  You can type in google search, Richmond, Indiana orchards and it will bring up several with the addresses listed right there.  Take your family to the orchard this fall!  You will be so happy that you did.

I havent been to an orchard for quite a long time.  While writing this story I was reminded of how wholesome an activity walking through an orchard is.  Fresh air, fresh fruit, exercise things we need everyday.  I remembered all the wonderful food that was prepared and the memories that were created.  I am older now,  but you are never too old to enjoy activities like this, in fact I think I might take my boyfriend to Wesslers Orchard, in New Paris Ohio this weekend!

You can find my grandmothers apple dumpling recipe in the recipe section of this site.

This article was written in memory of Grace Rodefer Philhower.  Thank you for those sweet memories Grandma.  I have never forgotten you, and still feel your presence with me today.  I love you always….