hello this is chef john from food wishes comma with apple dumplings that's right
I am very excited to be showing you one of America's oldest desserts which I
love everything about except the name since when I think of dumplings I don't
think of something like this okay what this really should be called is baked
whole apple pie ball but anyway is too late to change the name now so we will
just stick with apple dumplings and to get started the first thing we're going
to do is make a very simple sauce as in three ingredients simple and those will
be some brown sugar some butter and a splash of nice cold fresh water and what
we'll do is bring that up to a boil stirring occasionally over medium-high
heat and the reason I'm using a ladle is that eventually this stuff's going to
get labeled over our apples before they go in the oven but anyway like I said
we'll go ahead and bring that up to a boil and as soon as that's boiling and
we're sure all that sugars been dissolved we can go ahead and turn off
the heat and reserve it until needed and as I carefully swirl this around I
can see that my sauce is clear and there's no sugar at the bottom so we'll
simply turn that off and that is now ready to ladle over our apples and then
once that set we can move on to make a little bit of cinnamon sugar which not
surprisingly is made by stirring some cinnamon into sugar oh and by the way as
I stir this let me ask you when was the last time you had a nice piece of
cinnamon toast that was one of my favorite things ever and then once
that's mixed we can move on to prep our apples and by prep I simply mean core
which is super easy to do if you have one of these apple cores but if you
don't you can do the same thing with a small thin pointy knife just be careful
oh and as far as the Apple varieties go personally I think a Honey Crisp apple
works best for this but something like a Granny Smith would also work beautifully
so that choice is going to be up to you I mean you are after all the king of
your Apple Dumpling and as long as your highness chooses a baking variety this
is gonna work fine and then besides cording this will also want to check for
little stickers since that is not something you want to bake into your
Apple dumpling and that's it once our apples are prepped we can move on to
rolling out some pie dough and what I have here is half a batch of our butter
crust dough which I've divided in half sin
we're doing two okay so if you're keeping score at home one full batch of
butter crust should give you enough dough to make four of these apple
dumplings and then what we'll do is form that into a disk and then using just
enough flour so it doesn't stick we will roll that out to about an eighth of an
inch thick which is gonna make it about seven inches across but forget that
measurement the bottom line here is we need enough dough to wrap our Apple
completely so depending on the size of your Apple you might have to adjust and
sure I was kind of sort of trying to get it round which I really didn't not even
close but it really doesn't matter as long as we're able to wrap our Apple and
then what we'll do once our pie dough is rolled out is place our Apple right in
the center and then we will take our cinnamon sugar and we'll go ahead and
spoon in about three teaspoons or so and then once that's been transferred in
we'll go ahead and plug that hole with a nice chunk of butter or as my British
friends call it a knob of butter which is never not amusing and then once our
apples been cinnamon sugar and buttered we will go ahead and bring up our sides
of dough wrapping that as evenly as we can and one huge tip here make sure
you're doing this with enough dough okay we do not want to stretch and pull this
dough too tight otherwise once it bakes it's going to contract and fall apart so
no excessive pulling and stretching please and wherever that dough pleats
and we have extra what we'll do is just simply press that with our palms that
kind of even it out so that one area is in super super thick and another area is
in super thin and if everything goes according to plan we're gonna have
enough to seal everything at the top by simply pressing it all together like you
see me doing here and if we do end up with a little excess on the top we will
simply trim that off and then use that if we want for one optional step and
that would be to roll those trimmings out nice and thin and make a few leaves
with which to decorate our dumpling I mean do you want an undecorated dumpling
I don't so I went ahead and roll that out nice and thin and then use my knife
to cut out three leaf shapes or at least something remotely close to a leaf and
then using the edge of our knife we can make one line in the middle and then on
either side of that we'll make some little lines like at a 45 degree angle
to give it that classic leaf look and by the way we're just making marks do not
cut all the way through and that's it to attach these well just
brush or rub a little bit of water on the surface and those leaves are gonna
stick out nicely so I did three leaves all together and then I made a little
depression in the center since I still had enough dough left over to make a
stem oh and one more tip for you do not spend too much time on this stem okay
since once these bake it ends up being virtually unidentifiable but anyway once
you're happy with your design we can go ahead and transfer that into a lightly
buttered baking dish and then I really wish I would have taken my own advice
and not worried about the stem because I wasn't really happy with how it looked
so I pulled it out and reshaped it and made it much much worse but anyway
moving along I went ahead and made one more dumpling and as you can see I spent
a little more time on the leaves and then what we'll do once all our
dumplings have been placed in the dish is go ahead and ladle over our sauce
making sure the surface of each dumpling is completely coated and yes it might
seem like that sauce is a little thin but that's okay because that's gonna
thicken up as his bakes so we don't want to start off with it thick and that's it
once sauce these are ready to transfer into the center of a 375 degree oven for
about 50 to 60 minutes or until our pastry is cooked and beautifully browned
and our apples are tender and while those are baking it is not a bad idea to
give them a couple basting zhh with the sauce which I'm doing here after about a
half hour and by the way feel free to do this while they're in the oven
all right just open the door and pull out the rack and give them a quick baste
and pop them back in okay I'm just doing them here on the table because it's
easier to film but the point is you're gonna want to baste these a couple times
while they bake but anyway basting aside like I said we'll bake these for about
an hour total or until they look like this actually let me rephrase that or
until one of them looks like this so yes as you can see one of these completely
exploded and that's because of one reason and one reason only it's because
I didn't have quite enough dough so when I wrapped that when I pulled and
stretched it too tight so this is what we call in the recipe video business a
teaching moment but regardless of their appearance
sieze come out we'll ladle over some more of that sauce which is gonna make
that crust even shinier and more beautiful unless of course it exploded
like mine so anyway that was unfortunate and what made me feel even worse is the
one on the right was the one I made for Michelle so that was a bummer but anyway
on the bright side mine was fine so I went ahead and plate it up while it was
still warm and you should have plenty of that sauce
so we'll be sure to spoon some more over and then I highly recommend this gets
served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream oh and I should mention this is one of
the few rare dishes I know that we serve with a spoon and a steak knife but
anyway once I was properly garnished I grabbed that spoon a knife and went in
for the official taste in catastrophic ruptures to the other one aside this
really is an amazing thing to eat all right the flavor profile is almost
identical to an apple pie but instead of having a bunch of slices of Apple we
have one beautifully roasted tender sweet apple inside which while covered
in the same cross we use for a pie is far superior because we basted it and
baked it with that sugar sauce so you know on a regular pie those edges of the
crust that gets soaked with those surbhi juices and they're extra sticky and
crunchy and caramelized and amazing that's what all this crust is like oh
and by the way a whole apple is a big portion so I think you can easily serve
two people from one dumpling so I'm just gonna go ahead and eat half of this and
then I'll save the rest for Michelle since that one I made for her didn't
work out and of course I'm half kidding here about giving her half I didn't film
it but if you transferred that exploded Apple a new bowl and then just simply
place those pieces of fractured crust over the top and put a scoop of ice
cream next to it you really would be experiencing pretty much the same thing
just in a much much more unattractive form so use plenty of dough and do not
stretch and pull it too thin but anyway that's it
what they call apple dumplings even though what they really should call
these his whole baked apple pie balls but no matter what you call them they're
truly amazing which is why I really do hope you give them a try soon
so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written
recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy
you