Easy Apple Dumplings -- The Week I Wrote the True Thing

This is the week I wrote a blog post called what I know about survival and cooking and love and it is the longest thing I have ever written, almost three thousand words, and I wrote it in one sitting on a Saturday night with Biscuit on my lap and the kitchen smelling like the apple butter I had just made. I wrote about the Bedford home and the years where food was uncertain and about Dale, which I do not often write about directly, and about arriving at Gloria and James house at fourteen and the first dinner she made for me and the index cards.

I published it without thinking too hard about whether I should. Sometimes you have to not think too hard about whether to say the true thing. The post went further than anything I have written before. It has been shared widely in places I do not follow and people have sent me emails from states I have never been to and I have read every one.

This is my twentieth birthday week, more or less, and I am twenty years old and I have written something true that people are reading. I did not expect this to be part of my life. But nothing I have gotten in the last four years was something I expected. Expectation was not part of my vocabulary for a long time. It is part of it now.

Made apple butter this week, the same as last year, and it came out darker and richer than last year because I let it go longer. It tastes like fall in its most concentrated form. I have six jars. I will eat them through winter and remember this October.

The apple butter was already made and the jars were already lined up when I thought about what else I could do with the apples I had left, the ones that did not make it into the pot. Apple dumplings are something Gloria used to make in October, and I have been making my own version for a few years now. This week felt like a week that deserved something wrapped and warm and a little bit sweet—something you can hold in both hands. These are easy enough that you can make them while you are still thinking about something else, which is where I was all week.

Easy Apple Dumplings

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 8 small apples, peeled and cored
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided into 8 small pieces
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (for syrup)

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Grease a 13x9-inch baking dish and set aside.
2. Make the dough. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening with a pastry cutter or two forks until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk just until a soft dough forms. Do not overmix.
3. Roll the dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a large rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 8 equal squares, each large enough to wrap around one apple.
4. Fill the apples. Stir together the granulated sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. Place one apple in the center of each dough square. Fill the cored center of each apple with the sugar mixture and top with a small piece of butter.
5. Wrap and seal. Bring the corners of the dough up and around each apple, pinching the seams firmly to seal. Place dumplings seam-side down in the prepared baking dish.
6. Make the syrup. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the water, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon for the syrup. Bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves and the butter melts. Pour the hot syrup evenly over the dumplings.
7. Bake. Bake uncovered for 40–45 minutes, until the pastry is golden and the apples are tender when pierced with a fork. Baste the dumplings with the pan syrup once halfway through baking.
8. Serve. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving. Spoon extra syrup from the pan over each dumpling. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream or a spoonful of apple butter on the side if you have it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 480 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 68g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 280mg