These are the ones my grandmother used to make: warm, flaky, apple-y sweet and drizzled with a sauce that bakes right with them. These are not difficult to make, just a little time-consuming. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Old-Fashioned Apple Dumplings

recipe pastry

Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored

butter

brown sugar

cinnamon

nutmeg

water

white sugar

vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch pan.


On a lightly floured surface, roll pastry into a large rectangle, about 24 by 16 inches. Cut into 6 square pieces. Place an apple on each pastry square with the cored opening facing upward. Cut butter into 8 pieces. Place 1 piece of butter in the opening of each apple; reserve remaining butter for sauce. Divide brown sugar between apples, poking some inside each cored opening and the rest around the base of each apple.  Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg over the apples.


With slightly wet fingertips, bring one corner of pastry square up to the top of the apple, then bring the opposite corner to the top and press together. Bring up the two remaining corners, and seal. Slightly pinch the dough at the sides to completely seal in the apple. Repeat with the remaining apples. Place in prepared baking dish.


In a saucepan, combine water, white sugar, vanilla extract and reserved butter. Place over medium heat, and bring to a boil in a large saucepan. Boil for 5 minutes, or until sugar is dissolved. Carefully pour over dumplings.


Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Place each apple dumpling in a dessert bowl, and spoon some sauce over the top.


I used the premade pie crusts from the store, and it turned out great.  I also made a couple sauces to go with them.  A vanilla sauce, and a cinnamon sugar sauce.  Both yummy over the apples!  No leftovers.  I also made them for breakfast when I had some friends over.  I served them with scrambled egg crescent cups, and they were a huge hit!

Oh my gosh these are just like grandma used to make. The sauce is awesome!! I used about 1/2 cup less water because I boiled the sauce in the microwave and didn't want it to overflow. It will if you don't watch it carefully --so make sure if you do it in the microwave you use a big enough glass bowl. I added about 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar to the sauce instead of light brown and it gave it a rich flavor. What can I say but yum?!!

These are the true old-fashioned apple dumplings!  The sauce is awesome.  They aren't difficult, and were kind of fun to make.  I think you could even use store-bought pie dough if you aren't good at making your own.  I think these are a true comfort food.  Try them! 
Danny R.

EXCELLENT RECIPE!  I made this last sat nite and it turned out wonderful!  The only thing I could say to make it easier and taste better, is when making the crust, you can use those ready-made pie crusts from the store, and you can make 2 (half an apple per dumpling) dumplings per pie crust, OR can use a whole crust if you want to use a whole apple per dumpling.  I only used 1/2 of green apples (gave great tart flavor with the sweetness) per dumpling, with 1/8 stick of butter and added brown sugar/cinnamon, and nutmeg to personal taste.  I cooked this for 50 mins at the stated temperature, and it all cooked thoroughly well.  When you serve this, don't poor more juice over the dumpling, this makes it too rich.  You do want to poor the juice over the dumplings before cooking, but not after.  The crunchiness at the top and cinnamon softness at the bottom with vanilla ice cream gives a perfect tecture of a warm & cold treat for the mouth.  Great for having friends over!  I highly recommend this recipe.

I've made these a couple of times w/ a ready-made crust & homemade. A little involved to make but both looked impressive and were DELICIOUS. 

Sauce could be improved, instead, use the following caramel sauce from another recipe on this site: 
1 cup packed brown sugar 
1/2 cup butter 
2 tablespoons light corn syrup 

Heat brown sugar and 1/2 cup butter until melted. **Remove from heat** stir in corn syrup. (Add crushed pecans w/ sauce for a beautiful presentation!) 

Great Recipe!

First, I scaled this recipe down to 4 servings. I really wanted to take this one step further and make as close to my Nanny's recipe as possible. She always used canned biscuits. So I substituted Pillsbury Buttermilk Golden Layer biscuits for the pie crust. I used 2 1/2 rolled biscuits for each apple. Wrapping each apple and gently closing the tops. Then I cooked in a 350 degree oven for approximately 50 minutes. The real secret is to keep basting the apples with your sauce about every 10 minutes to keep the crust nicely glazed, which will bake to a beautiful golden crust. I served this with homemade vanilla ice cream.  My husband says it is the best ever! This is definitely a "MUST HAVE" recipe. Thanks!

These were excellent! I had a lot of trouble rolling out the dough out all at once. Next time I will divide the dough into 6 pieces and roll each out individual circles. As I cooked it I thought the sugar-water sauce seemed way too thin and there seemed to be way too much so I only added about a third of it to the pan. In the end the sauce cooked down and I wished I had added it all to the pan. Next time I will follow the directions exactly.Thanks!

i love apple pie but this take the cake. i have make this recipe 3xs and everyone raved about it. the first time i made it i cut the sauce in 1\2. don't it needs the sauce for pouring over dumpling after they are cooked thanks for this recipe. no more apple for me.

This had an OK taste to it. I used the recipe for Buttery Flaky Pie Crust (which was great) for the shell. I tried it with granny smith apples but I liked rome apples better. So did everyone else. End result was everyone really liked the shell just not the apple part. So still looking for grandma's apple dumplings.

old-fashioned apple dumplings

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hours

Total: 1 hours, 30 minutes

Servings: 6

Cost: $5.95 /serving

Author : MICKI WOOD

Ingredients

Instructions

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