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:

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


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


All plated and sauced up!


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

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