Apple Dumplings with cinnamon sauce

The best apple treat - apples baked in pastry with cinnamon sauce!

Here it is - our #1 favorite, most excellent and sumptuous autumn dessert! We first encountered this heavenly pastry enrobed sweet from another time and place, amidst sword -swallowers, madrigal singers, and Renaissance garb and weapons, next to the turkey drumstick booth. This medieval version was served with a warm cinnamon sauce and vanilla ice cream. Inspired, I set out on a momentous quest to re-create the Renaissance Fair Apple Dumpling!

My daughter champions the Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Dumplings sold in Reading Terminal in Philly as an able opponent to my version below - a worthy rival, I will concede. But the cinnamon sauce of the Fair version, a slightly thickened simple syrup, buttered and cinnamonized, tips the battle in my favor. A duel between recipes in my kitchen might lead to fighting words - or at least some swordplay in defense! Be sure to cook only until a knife pierces the apple with just a hint of resistance.

Apple Dumplings with Cinnamon sauce

4 medium Granny Smith or other tart, firm apples
3 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon. ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

PIE CRUST:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable shortening 1/2 cup cold butter
4 - 6 tab. cold water

CINNAMON SAUCE:
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup water 1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white corn syrup
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
dash of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Prepare Cinnamon Sauce:
-Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add water mixed with cornstarch, brown sugar, corn syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently and let bubble until thickened, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Set aside.

Prepare Apples:
-Peel apples. Remove the core with a sharp paring knife or apple corer enlarging, the hole to about 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Be careful not to cut all the way through the bottom of the apple. Leave about 1/2 inch of flesh in the bottom of the hole created, so the filling doesn't ooze out during baking.
-Melt 2 tablespoons butter and stir in sugar, 1 1/2 tab. ground cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice, nutmeg, salt and flour in mixing bowl. Add nuts if used. Fill the center of each cored apple half full with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place 1/2 teaspoon butter on top of the filling of each apple.

To Prepare the Pastry:
-Place flour and salt in a medium mixing bowl or in the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and shortening, mixing by hand or with the food processor with short pulses, until the butter/shortening is just barely incorporated and the mixture is the consistency of lumpy sand. Handling or processing as little as possible, sprinkle the cold water over the dough and toss and push together just until dough balls together. (Overhandling of dough creates tough pastry.) On a lightly floured counter or waxed paper, shape dough into a rough disc. Wrap the pastry with waxed paper or plastic wrap and chill until needed, or at least 20 minutes.

-Divide the pastry into 4 equal portions. Roll each portion out into a 10-inch circle on lightly floured waxed or parchment paper. Set filled apple, right side up in center of each pastry round. Cut a wedge out of the pastry round, to equal about 1/5th of the round and set aside. Pull the edges of the pastry up over the apple, to completely cover it, making pleats in the pastry as necessary for the crust to cover the apple snuggly. Smooth the pastry and seal the seams by gently pushing and rubbing to create a smooth covering of the apple. Patch any exposed areas of the apple with extra pastry and smooth in place. Pinch pastry together firmly at the top, cutting off any excess pastry.

-Re-roll the excess pastry and cut leaves from it as shown below. Indent the pastry at the top of the apple and place a whole clove in the center to create a “stem”. Arrange 2 or 3 pastry leaves around the top of the apple as if growing from the stem. Brush pastry leaves and top surface with egg wash made from 1 beaten egg yolk and 1 tablespoon cream, whisked together until smooth. This will help hold leaves in places as well as to ensure your pastry bakes to a golden color.

-Place dumplings 2 to 3 inches apart on well-greased cookie sheet or parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake in oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 30 - 35 minutes. Dumplings should be lightly golden and the flesh of the apple just barely done. Test with a sharp knife - the apple should offer just a bit of resistance. It is easy to over-bake the dumplings which may cause them to explode and fall apart! At the appearance of a crack in the pastry of any of the apples, remove tray from oven.

-Remove from oven and let cool at least 15 minutes. They are delicious served warm or cold with cinnamon sauce and vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.

-Makes 4 dumplings.

Pull edges of pastry up over filled apple, pleasting dough as necessary.

Pinch edges of dough together at the top of the filled apple.

Cut leaves from excess pastry, rolled out again.

Place 2 - 3 leaves coming out from top of apple - brush on cream to help keep them in place.

Place a whole clove in the top to represent a stem.

Bake until golden and apples are just tender.