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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

King Arthur's Apple Dumplings

My sister is coming up from Toledo this weekend to spend 5 days with us - I'm so excited! I spoke with my Mom yesterday to see how we wanted to spend our time and she suggested that while I'm at work on Monday that she and my sister should take a drive out to our hometown and visit my lovely Auntie (who just celebrated her 80th birthday yesterday - Love You Auntie!) and that we should all meet back at my Mom's place for dinner Monday night. Sounded good to me.. Mommie's home cookin' Woo!! Then she asked if I'd make the dessert.. not a problem, I'd be happy to! She wants The Crisp. My infamous Apple Crisp that is so fakkin' addicting that it is hard not to eat the whole damn thing within 24 hours (I usually lose that battle). I couldn't not agree to do it as I always make what my Mom wants.. but I had plans to make it last night, so I had to find something else to make as there are too many apples in a 1/2 peck for even The Crisp and I didn't want them rotting on my dining room table. Okay so that's a big fat lie. Hubbs says those apples will last a good 2 weeks and we didn't have anything sweet in the house and I hadda have something, dammit. Hee!

I keep hearing how the King Arthur flour company puts out some amazing recipes, so I went to their website yesterday to find something to bake. There is a long list of items made with apples, but as soon as I saw Apple Dumplings and checked out the recipe to see how involved it was, I knew I had to make them. I've only had 1 apple dumpling in my life - it was many, many moons ago and I remember how flaky the dough was and how delish the apples that were tucked inside were. The recipe was not very involved at all and I could have 8 fresh apple dumplings within an hour & a 1/2. Perfect!

I've been using King Arthur flour for about a year now and I really do notice a difference, especially in my baking. Unfortunately though, no good flour was going to help this recipe. Hubbs was already sleeping by the time the dumplings were cooled off enough to eat, but I saw that some time during the night he got up and ate one - although I haven't had a chance to ask him yet this morning if he liked it or not. Just a sec... Okay he liked them. Huh. I thought for sure he would tell me he didn't. 'kay maybe this is all about me and my off taste buds. Well I can't even really say that, as they tasted really good.. but the dough was cakey and not flaky at all. I was hoping for more of a flaky pie crust dough. I hate a cakey dough - it's too heavy IMHO.

I'm not bothering to type out the recipe but here is the link if you would like to try them. Again, flavor was delish.. and they are quite the lil stunners appearance wise. I was quite pleased with how they looked. The recipe was super easy - the only bitch I had was coring the apples, because I don't have a corer. The dough came together in just seconds in my processor and was easy to roll out and play with. The recipe suggested just cutting the apples in half, but I decided to slice each half into 4 slices per bundle because I thought it might help with cooking time. I was afraid the dumplings would burn by the time the apples cooked through. I don't know if it was because of cutting them or not, but the dumplings baked to a beautiful golden brown and the apples were tender. I'm going to try apple dumplings again - but next time I'm going to try a more flaky dough.

Pictures below:

Apple Dumplings before
The "before" picture.. aren't they adorable? :)

Apple Dumplings after
The "after" picture.. goldeny brown and gorgeous!

Apple Dumpling
All plated and sauced up!

Inside Apple Dumpling
Lil apples peeking out.. but look at that dough - cakey! Gah.

Does anyone have a good flakey dough recipe for apple dumplings, by chance?

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Comments on "King Arthur's Apple Dumplings"

 

Blogger Rachel said ... (10/10/2006 10:16 AM) : 

Yummy! I love baked apple dishes!``

 

Blogger Meeta K. Wolff said ... (10/10/2006 3:01 PM) : 

OH Lisa, you you think your mum would mind if I came along? These look so good, I am wetting my keyboard!!

 

Blogger Sara said ... (10/10/2006 5:58 PM) : 

Those are beautiful! This is the perfect time of year for appple desserts.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (10/10/2006 11:23 PM) : 

Hi Lis -
I love individual desserts, this one is so great as I can just make it for two or twenty and freeze the rest of the dough for later, yum!

 

Blogger Gattina Cheung said ... (10/11/2006 12:26 PM) : 

Lis,
wow, what a looker! You did a great job in shaping/wrapping! Look at that luscious syrup! why I;m still here... :P
About your cake-y crust... the recipe does look like yielding for a flaky crust to me. Could it be a prblem from handling the dough (e.g. the dough too warm so the butter melted, etc)? I've done many many pies, in the beginning encountered all sorts of problem, but I found solution from books and kept practising, now things come out perfect. Lis, so please keep trying :)
Btw, I like to replace 50% butter with veg shortening, the crust is even flakier. HTH

 

Blogger Callipygia said ... (10/11/2006 6:51 PM) : 

Hey Lis, the good thing about living in NH :( is the King Arthur Flour Company in nearby Vermont. I love their site and in general really like their recipes. I thing these look so darn good and would also be disappointed with the cakey dough. Can you just use your regular pie dough recipe?

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (10/11/2006 10:30 PM) : 

Hey!

These look so good!

Where's mine???

 

Blogger Ziz said ... (10/12/2006 1:06 AM) : 

looks so good. so do you want to come over or should i?

 

Blogger Julie said ... (10/12/2006 2:37 PM) : 

These are super-adorable. I can see what you mean about the cakey dough. Definitely not what I'd want either. Hmmm, more butter, less flour perhaps?

 

Blogger jasmine said ... (10/13/2006 10:02 PM) : 

I've never tried King Arthur--usually Robin Hood or Five Roses...

As to pastry...have you looked at Tamasin Day-Lewis (Daniel's sister)'s "Tarts With Tops On"--it's my standard pie and tart book....

j

 

Blogger Lis said ... (10/26/2006 6:24 AM) : 

Maybe I blacked out after posting this recipe? I can't believe I didn't acknowledge all of your lovely comments.

But thank you all - and Gattina, I suspect you could be right. Maybe I left the dough on the counter too long while rolling it out or maybe I kneaded it too long? I think I might try it again or at the very least, the next dough recipe I make I will pay close attention to how much I handle it. Thank you dear =)

Michelle - I couldn't agree more! Now I just wish we lived closer to each other so I could crash dinner time at your house every once in a while ;)

 

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