Rolled Apple Dumplings

A viral recipe

When I found this recipe in Grandma's box, not once but four times, . . . 

I was fascinated. Notice that two of the cards have names at the top to indicate the person she received the recipe from--two different people, mind you. This must have been a back-in-the-day version of a viral recipe. Everybody was making it and passing it around.

Well then, it looked like I had better make it and see what all the fuss was about. 

And so, I did. And then, because I had made a mistake and also wanted to improve something, I made it again. And I made even more mistakes. 

So, what follows are do-what-I-say, not do-what-I-did instructions. 

How to make Rolled Apple Dumplings

Before I began making the recipe, I did two things. First, I decided to add the word "Rolled" to the title to differentiate it from another apple dumpling recipe I remembered Grandma making. That one had hot, homemade apple sauce on the bottom and dumplings floating on top. Unfortunately, the recipe for those dumplings must have remained in Grandma's head because I haven't come across it in her box. 

Next, I took a hard look at each of the four copies of this recipe and found a particularly vague line in all of them: "Add enough milk to make a soft dough."

What did that mean? I couldn't even guess until I studied the recipe further and realized that the "soft dough" would be rolled out like a pie crust. Well, pie crust is something I know, so that was where I began. 

First, I whisked together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar. 

Next, I added three tablespoons of shortening. Yes. Shortening. No substituting butter this time because pie crust is one recipe where I consistently use shortening for its flakiness and ease of use. With a pastry blender, I cut the shortening in until I'd achieved a consistency that contained both small and larger pieces of shortening. By the way, I always use Crisco. The store brand just doesn't measure up.  

Adding the vague amount of milk was the next step, so I sprinkled in a tablespoon at a time, lightly tossing the flour and shortening mixture as I did. (You can read more about my pie dough technique in this post.) I continued adding milk and tossing the mixture until it was evenly moistened and began to clump together. 

Next, I gathered it into a ball. The dough was soft, as the recipe said it should be, but not sticky. I pressed it into a disk, wrapped it in plastic, and placed it in the fridge to chill while I prepared the apples. 

The recipe called for four apples. It didn't say what kind to use, but my go-to for baking is Granny Smith. I peeled them, cut them into quarters, and grated them using the coarse blade of my grater. 

Next, I did something I didn't do the first time, something that isn't in the recipe. I placed the grated apples on a clean towel and squeezed out as much of their juice as I could. The first time, all that liquid made it hard to roll the pastry up.  

Speaking of pastry, it was time to get it out of the fridge and roll it out. I floured my pastry mat and rolled the dough into a 18 x 16-inch rectangle.  More or less. It wasn't perfect, as you can plainly see. 

I scattered the grated apples over the pastry, leaving a border around the edge, then quickly rolled it up before any of the apple juice could penetrate the pastry.  

If you looked at the recipe above, you might be saying, But wait. Wasn't there butter and cinnamon and sugar that needed to go in too? If you're saying that, I wish you had been there with me to point that out. 

Too late, I realized I'd missed two critical steps, which was ironic because I forgot the butter the first time and had been determined to correct my mistake. Just so you won't make the same mistake I did, spread the butter on first, sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar over it, and then add the apples. 

It was too late for me, though, so I patched a hole at the top of the roll, cut the log into slices, and placed them in a baking dish. 

The drying of the apples seemed to have helped. The dough fell apart much less than it did the first time, pictured below. Notice that I remembered the cinnamon and sugar that time. 

I had mixed together the cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl, so I went ahead and sprinkled it on top of the rolls. I then added a "pat" of butter to each one. (Remember this is what I did. NOT what you're going to do.)

The next step is what makes this a recipe for dumplings, not apple pastries. They are baked in a sweet sauce, which I made by combining sugar, flour, salt, and water in a saucepan and bringing it to a boil. I then carefully poured it around the rolls so that I didn't disturb my carefully placed "pats." 

Into the oven went the baking dish, and it came out looking like this. 

They looked pretty good. The only thing left was to add a scoop of ice cream and dig in. 

The Verdict on Rolled Apple Dumplings

It tastes a lot like apple pie--those were my thoughts the first time I made this recipe, and again the second time. Apple, cinnamon, pastry--all the same elements are there, but with added gooiness that makes these dumplings their own thing.

It didn't matter that I'd messed up the recipe both times. It was still really good. So the moral of the story seems to be that this recipe is hard to get wrong. Don't worry if your log falls apart while you're rolling it, or cutting it, or putting the slices in the baking dish.  Don't worry if you forget a step, like I did. Just shove all the bits in the dish, surround them with sauce, and everything will work out in the oven. 

I will try this recipe again, following my own revised steps, but I know it will be good no matter what I do. It's nice to happen upon a recipe like that, one you can count on to be delicious, one that looks so unique, it will wow your guests. Maybe that's why Rolled Apple Dumplings went viral back in the day. 

Try them for yourself and see what I mean.