| Apple dumpling | |
| Course: | Breakfast, main dish, dessert |
| Type: | Pastry |
| Main Ingredient: | Dough, apples, cinnamon, sugar, sometimes dried fruit and spices |
An apple dumpling is a baked or boiled pastry-wrapped apple. To prepare apple dumplings, apples are peeled, cored and sometimes quartered and placed on a portion of dough. The hole from the core may be filled with cinnamon, butter and sugar and sometimes dried fruit such as raisins, sultanas, or currants. The dough is folded over the apples and sealed. Sometimes a spiced sauce is poured over the dumplings which are then baked until tender; the sugar and butter create a sweet sauce. Apple dumplings can be served hot, cold, or room temperature for breakfast, dessert, or as a main dish.
Boiled apple dumplings are among the earliest of fruit puddings.[1] They were eaten "at all social levels". In 1726 Nicholas Amhurst complained about apple dumplings at Oxford, saying "nothing can be expected from only rot-gut small beer, and heavy apple-dumplings, but stupidity, sleepiness, and indolence."[2] [3] Two recipes for apple dumplings were published in Hannah Glasse's 1747 cookbook.[4] In 1749–1750, when botanist Pehr Kalm traveled from New Jersey to Quebec, he reported having apple dumplings at every meal. In 1754 English agriculturalist William Ellis called them one of the most common foods among farmers, along with bacon and pickled pork.