Apple Dumplings

Welcome to chapter 372 of why I love apple desserts and bakes.

Dishes featuring apple pop up here and, on my blog, regularly so deeply does my love of them run. I almost feel like I should apologise such is the frequence of their appearance. Together with pumpkin, root vegetables and soup they call me like a seasonal sentinel as the morning air greets me with it’s crisp bite much like a fresh apple. I can even wax lyrical of sweet yet tart juice bursting on the palette with each satisfying mouthful.

My last recipe featuring apple was my creamy, nourishing, hug in a bowl porridge. Topped with my favourite apple compote it’s my favourite enticement to get out of bed in the morning AKA breakfast. I thought then that I really needed to offer you a little more diversity which was indeed my intention. As the weather cooled this week with the end of daylight saving my craving for a bowl of something warm in my hands in the morning bubbled up to the surface. Each morning I’ve greeted the day slowly stirring the saucepan until milk met oats and thick creamy goodness formed while I sipped my first strong coffee of the day. With sweet bananas and juicy berries still featuring in the fruit bowl I hadn’t made apple compote for my porridge but was reminded of it’s spiced caramel goodness, mind ticking over. But no, I resisted. No more apple Sally! So I turned to seasonal produce. I tried a version of today’s recipe with pears. I love pears and love cooked fruit but something was missing.

Frustrated I let my mind wander to past warming desserts determined a bowl of something warm and comforting to enjoy on the couch after dinner as a little sweet treat was definitely in order this week. My Nana’s golden syrup dumplings were always a favourite but like many of her specialties I neglected to take the time to learn to make them with her…. Spend time with your parents and grandparents in the kitchen kids!

Anyway that didn’t feel like it would quench the autumn dessert craving, then I remembered one of my very early cooking successes learnt in year nine home economics class in high school. It was my favourite subject second only to English…surprising huh. I remember the day I learnt to make apple dumplings in class delighted and proud in equal measure. I remember my glee at watching the syrup bubbling away and the dumplings puffing up and browning. I went on to make them at home for my parents and I repeatedly during my high school years yet somehow as time marched on I seemed to forget them. Fast forward to a few years ago when it was time to clean out my dad’s house I even scoured the bookshelves desperately trying to find my school Home Ec textbook, Cookery the Australian Way, certain it contained the treasured recipe from long ago though sadly with no success.

So to today with the leaves turning outside and the crisp dewy air in the hours outside autumn sunshine I’ve returned to trying to nut out this old favourite. A few attempts and false starts and I’ve landed here with a happy full tummy and a now empty spoon scraping the bottom of an empty bowl.

Ingredients:

Dumplings

3 small apples, peeled, cored and halved

250 gm SR flour

1 tsp cinnamon or a cinnamon based spice blend like the one I’ve used here

¼ tsp cooking salt

2 heaped Tb caster sugar

50 gm cold unsalted butter cubed

1 egg yolk

150 milk

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

Syrup

280 gm brown sugar

370 ml water

1 ½ tsp vanilla paste/extract

Pinch salt

½ tsp ground cardamon

15 gm unsalted butter

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c fan forced. Prepare a suitably sized dish greasing with soft butter, I use a rectangular ceramic dish measuring 29 x 18 cm.

In a small saucepan combine syrup ingredients except butter. Simmer on low heat until sugar is dissolved. It doesn’t need to thicken or reduce too much as it will do so later in the oven. Set aside to cool sliglthly.

I make the dumpling dough in a food processor to speed things up but you can use a traditional scone method. In the bowl of your food processor, measure out the flour and add the dry ingredients. Give this a quick pulse to aerate and combine. Now add the butter cubes pulsing in short burts until the butter is broken up as it would be if you were rubbing by hand. Add combined wet ingredients and mix only until combined. Remove and finish with a lite knead on a floured bench.

Divide dough into six portions. Flatten each piece with your hand and wrap around each apple half gently working it to wrap around the fruit as you would a piece of play do. It’s a very soft dough and requires a gentle hand.

Place each dumping in the prepared dish flat side down in one even layer. Pour the syrup over and around the dumplings and pop in the oven for 35 minutes. The syrup should be hot and bubbly and the dumpling crisp on top and almost pudding like underneath. Serve hot with cream, ice cream or custard, but be careful of that caramelly hot syrup.

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Reading:

~ Tucking this one by indigenous former journalist and now oxford student Brooke Boney into my bag to take away with me for easter. I’m in awe of her walking away from a blossoming media career to chase her academic dream and goal and her courage and resilience on her journey. Should be a great read.

~Daily essays by a stellar collections of international food writers on the new platform Scribehound Food. They drop in Australia in the late afternoon but I’ve been saving them for morning reading with my coffee. Loving the fascinating collection of topics so far.

Eating:

~My favourite carrot and chickpea salad using rose harissa from the new Ottolenghi range featuring pomegranate and lemon. Actually using it lots of dishes at the moment, such a delicious take on the classic. Oh and if you’re making the salad, I added a zucchini and half a red capsicum chopped into large pieces added to the carrots halfway through cooking. Delicious!!

Ok friends I’m off to gobble down the last of the dumplings before unseasonably hot weather returns on the weekend…though……ice cream weather… 😋😀

S x