Weekend Cooking #3: Apple Dumplings in WW II

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When I read the book Who was that Masked Man, Anyway? by Avi, the young protagonist, Frankie Wattleson, often mentioned his mother’s Apple Dumplings. And, in fact, his mother even uses the prospect of an apple dumpling to bribe her renter, Mr. Swerdlow, after Frankie gets into trouble with him. I had never had apple dumpling, and imagined them to look like my mother’s dumpling, only with chunks of apple in them. Well, I was wrong, and below are some recipes that show just how wrong I was.

Apple Dumplings (6 sevings)
To make Flaky Pastry:
2 ¼ cups unsifted all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
½ cup lard or vegetable shortening
4 to 5 tbsp ice water
1. Combine flour and salt in a medium bowl.
2. Cut in lard or shortening until crumbs are the size of a small pea.
3. Gradually add water, stirring with a fork just until mixture will form a ball. The less water used the better.

1 Flaky Pastry (as above)
½ cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
6 medium apples, peeled and cored
2 tbsp butter, cut into 6 equal chunks
½ cup maple syrup
Cream or sweetened whipped cream (optional)

1- Preheat oven to 325° and grease a 13 X 9 inch baking pan or dish.
2- Roll out dough to make an 18 X 12 inch rectangle. Cut dough into 6 inch squares.
3- Combine sugar and cinnamon in a pie plate. Roll apples, one at a time, in sugar mixture, then tuck a chunk of butter into center of each apple, and wrap apple completely in one of the pastry squares, pinching edges together. Do this with each apple.
4- Place in greased pan, pinched edges down. Pierce a hole in the top of each wrapped apple and drizzle maple syrup over them.
5- Bake dumplings 30 to 35 minutes or until juices start to bubble out of pastry at the bottom.
6- Place each apple on a separate dish and serve hot with cream or whipped cream.

From: Grandma’s Wartime Kitchen: World War II and the Way We Cooked by Joanne Lamb Hayes (I don’t know where each recipe originally came from, but wish that had been included.)

Two Variations:

Peach Surprise Dumplings (serves 4)
8 squares of pastry Sauce (see below)
8 halves of canned peaches
Orange marmalade

1. Preheat oven to 400°
2. Place 1 half peach on each square of pastry
3. Put 1 spoonful of marmalade in each half; cover with other half of peach.
4. Bring corner of pastry up over each peach.
5. Set in English muffin rings in a pan and bake 40 minutes or until crust is done.
6. Serve with the following sauce, cooked until clear:

1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp sugar
¼ to ½ cup milk
1 cup canned peach juice
½ tsp vanilla
Sprinkling of coconut

From: Cooking on a ration: food is still fun by Marjorie Mills (1943)

This is another variation from the New York Times
on November 17, 1942 by Jane Holt.
During the war, apples not rationed and were abundant.

Poster from 1943 US Department of Agriculture