It’s that magical time of year again, when the air feels a little crisper and the leaves turn golden, and nothing says fall quite like a warm apple dumpling crowned with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream. There’s just something about this old-fashioned treat that feels like home. For me, no matter how many pastry recipes I try, I always circle back to the Classic Crisco pie crust—it’s simple, dependable, and just perfect.
If you’re lucky enough to wander through an orchard, grab a bag of freshly picked apples. If not, the grocery store has plenty of wonderful choices. I’ve never been a fan of Granny Smith—they’re just a little too tart for my taste. I love the mellow sweetness of Golden Delicious or the crisp bite of Honeycrisp. Both make the dumplings shine.
And honestly, there’s no better way to spend an autumn afternoon than baking up a batch of apple dumplings and sharing them with the people you love. The smell alone wraps the whole house in comfort, and every bite feels like a memory in the making.
Ingredients
1 (14.1 ounce) double-crust pie pastry, thawed. I always use the Crisco recipe for double crust deep dish piecrust because I would rather have a bit left over than not enough.
6 large preferably Golden Delicious apples, peeled and cored
One stick of butter, KerryGold takes it to the next level
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
3 cups water
2 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat your oven to 425°F ( Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry into a 24×16-inch rectangle. Cut into six 10-inch squares. Place one apple in the center of each square, right side up.
Cut the butter into 8 pieces. Put one pat of butter into the cored opening of each apple; you will have leftover butter, reserve the remaining for the sauce.
You can divide brown sugar among the apples: some inside the cored openings, the rest around each apple’s base and sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg over the apples, I actually like mixing all of this together first.
Here comes the tricky part, not that tricky actually, you just need to take your time. Wet your fingers, bringing one corner of the pastry square up to the top of the apple, then bring the opposite corner and press together, keeping those fingers damp so that the dough sticks together when you press it. Bring up the remaining two corners and seal. Pinch and shape sides with your hands so the apples are enclosed and rounded. Then take the leftover pieces of piecrust, cut them into leaf shapes and if you want, score the veins for a realistic look. Dampen them to attach to the top of the dumplings.
The sauce is simple, just combine water, sugar, vanilla and the reserved butter in a large saucepan. Over medium heat, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until sugar is dissolved (about 5 minutes).Carefully pour the sauce over the dumplings.
Bake in the oven until the dumplings are golden brown and crisp on top, about 55-60 minutes.
And now for that Crisco piecrust recipe - This is the link for the 2 crust Deep Dish Crust, scroll down the page to see it
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πΆπ Maggie says thanks for help keeping her treat jar full ππΆ
