Baked Apple Dumplings

I think it is about time I do a non Barefoot Blogger - non cake post. Not that there is anything wrong with those but I need to do a new recipe I actually pick myself every once in a while. Here in MN it seems like it is winter already. It was in the low 20s last week and we just got our first snow cover yesterday. Well - it is not winter yet and anything apples make me think of fall.

The recipe has a delicious cider sauce you can make ahead of time and is good over ice cream when the Apple Dumplings are done. I did have a little trouble with the dough. It called for buttermilk which I did not have (again) and I decided to use just milk. I couldn't really get it to mix with the dough - I ended up dumping a bunch of the milk off. I don't really think it would have been different with buttermilk but who knows. The dough turned out very soft and it was hard to form around the apples without falling apart - but I got it done and they seemed to turn out good.

I love pretty much any fruit dessert and these didn't let me down. The apples were good - not too soft and not too firm. The crust was very good despite my issues. The sauce, as I said earlier, was very good and a nice extra touch on the dumplings. You could do these without the sauce but I am not sure I would want to now that I have had it.

Baked Apple Dumplings

Source: Cook's Country Oct/Nov 2009, page 20

Serve 8

Ingredients

Dough

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces and chilled
• 5 tablespoons vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2 inch pieces and chilled
• 3/4 cup cold buttermilk

Apple Dumplings

• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 3 tablespoons golden raisins, chopped
• 4 golden delicious apples
• 2 egg whites, lightly beaten

Directions

1. Make Dough. Process flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in food processor until combined. Scatter butter and shortening over flour and pulse until mixture resembles wet sand. Transfer to bowl. Stir in buttermilk until dough forms. Turn onto floured surface and knead briefly until dough is cohesive. Press dough into 8 by 4 inch rectangle. Cut in half, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.
2. Prep Apples. Adjust over rack to middle and heat oven to 425 degrees. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. In second bowl combine butter, raisins, and 3 tablespoons cinnamon and sugar mixture. Peel apples and halve through equator. Remove core (being careful not to pierce bottom) and pack butter mixture into each half.
3. Assemble Dumplings. On lightly floured surface, roll each dough half into a 12 inch square. Cut each square into four 6 inch squares. Working one at a time, lightly brush edges of dough square with egg whites and place apple, cut side up in center. Gather dough, one corner at a time on top of the apple, crimping edges to seal. Using paring knife, cut vent hole in top of each apple.
4. Finish Apples. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Arrange dumplings on prepared sheet, brush tops with egg white, and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar. Bake until dough is golden brown and juices are bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on baking sheet 10 minutes. Serve with Cider Sauce.

Cider Sauce

Make about 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients

• 1 cup apple cider
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions

1. Bring cider, water, sugar, and cinnamon to simmer in saucepan and cook over medium high heat until thickened and reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about 15 minutes. Off heat, whisk in butter and lemon juice. Drizzle over dumplings to serve.

Apple Tart Tatin

In my last post I mentioned I always wanted to cook Tart Tatin. Lara mentioned one of her friends from out of town was going to be in town this week and she wanted to know if I would make dinner. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.

First you make up the dough. It is a tart dough, which is like a pie dough only it has sugar and an egg in it. When the dough has been rolled out it goes in the fridge and you start on the apples. The recipe called for Granny Smith. A lot of recipes call for Granny Smith because they are good for baking, they are available all year, and they are available everywhere. If it is apple season, feel free to support your local farms and buy any good baking apple. I am using Braeburn here.

You quarter the apples and cook them on top of the stove in butter and sugar. You cook them on high heat until the butter/sugar starts to caramelize a bit and the apples brown. This takes 10-15 minutes. At this point you flip all the apples over with a fork. As you can see from the picture it looked nice at this point.

Once the apples have been flipped you continue cooking on high for another five minutes to brown the other side of the apples. This is where everything went wrong.

It doesn't take very long from the point where the apples look great and the caramel starts to burn and turn very black. I took a quick taste to make sure it was really bad and it was. I didn't have enough apples to start over and no other options for desert so I decided to try and fix it. It was only about a quarter of the apples that burned - it was mostly just the caramel. I took each apple out, cut off anything that looked black, and carefully placed it into a new pan. Some of the apples fell apart and it didn't look nearly as nice, but I saved most of the apples. I then quick cooked up some butter, sugar to make a new caramel (not burnt this time) and poured it over the apples.

At this point I continued on with the recipe by topping it with the crust and baking it in the oven. Overall it didn't turn out too bad. It definitely didn't look as nice as it should have. It is supposed to be the nice ring of apples all perfectly spaced - but that is hard to do when cutting off burnt pieces while burning your fingers on 500 degree caramel. You could also taste a little bitterness in spots because of the burning - but not bad considering. I would make this again for sure but next time I will keep a better eye on it near the end.

Apple Tart Tatin
(Source : Cook's Illustrated Feb 1996)
Serves 8

Ingredients:

Flaky Egg Pastry

• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter chilled and cut into 1/4 inch pieces
• 1 large egg, cold and beaten

Caramelized Apples

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3 pounds Granny smith apples (six large), peeled, quartered, and cored

Tangy Cream Topping

• 1 cup heavy cream, cold
• 1/2 cup sour cream, cold

Directions:

1. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in food processor fitted with steel blade. Scatter butter over dry ingredients; process until mixture resembles cornmeal, 7 to 12 seconds. Turn mixture into medium bowl; add egg and stir with fork until little balls form. Press balls together with back of fork , then gather dough into ball with hands. Wrap with plastic, then flatten into 4 inch disk. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes. (Can be stored overnight; let stand at room temperature to warm slightly before using).
2. Unwrap dough and turn onto well floured surface. Sprinkle with additional flour. Roll into 12 inch circle, strewing flour underneath to preven sticking. Slide lightly floured, rimless cookie sheet or pizza peel under crust, cover with plastic, and refrigerate while preparing apples. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle; heat oven to 375.
3. For the filling: Melt the butter in a 9 inch oven safe skillet; remove from heat and sprinkle evenly with sugar. Arrange apples in a circle around outside of skillet. Lift each quarter onto its edge while adding the next apple so that the quarters stand almost straight up. Fill the middle of the skillet with the remaining quarters.
4. Return skillet to high heat; cook until juices turn from butterscotch to rich amber color, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from heat and using fork or paring knife, turn apples onto uncaramelized sides. Return skillet to high heat; boil to cook uncaramelized sides of apples (about 5 minutes).
5. Remove skillet from heat. Slide prepared dough over skillet, and, taking care not to burn fingers, tuck dough edges against skillet wall.
6. Bake until crust is golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Set skillet on wire rack; let cool about 20 minutes. Loosen edges with knife, place serving plate over skillet, turn tart upside-down, then remove skillet.
7. For the topping: With electric mixer, beat heavy cream and sour cream until mixture thickens and holds soft but definite peaks. Accompany each wedge of tart with generous dollop of topping.
   

It's my Birthday!

Let me start this by saying that my wife is not really a cook. She is not really detail oriented when it comes to cooking and usually ends up skipping a step or two. When she mentions that she might cook breakfast she usually means oatmeal. So when ever she asks if I want breakfast I say I would like a Pannekoeken or something that I know she will never make.

Today is my birthday and Lara decided to actually make pannekoeken. Somehow we actually had all the ingredients so she was able to do it. I think the only mistake she made was the oven temp and this was corrected before it was too late. As you can see it came out nicely. The apples were very good - a little sweet - a little tart. It is apple season now and I think it was Braeburn apples that were used instead of the Granny Smith called for in the recipe. The recipe wasn't in the breakfast section of the cookbook - it was in the dessert section - so you know it was going to be good. I ate the last piece later on with a little vanilla ice cream and it was just as good for dessert as it was for breakfast.

German Apple Pancake

(Source: The New Best Recipe)

Serves 4

• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup half and half
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 3 medium Granny Smith apples (about 1 1/4 pounds) peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4 inch slices.
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
• Maple syrup, warmed, for serving

1. Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat to 500 degrees. Combine the eggs, half and half, vanilla, salt, and granulated sugar in food processor or blender and process until well combined, about 15 seconds. Add the flour and process until mixed and free of lumps, about 30 seconds; set the batter aside.
2. Add the butter to a 10 inch non-stick oven-proof skillet and heat over medium-high until butter is foaming. Add the apples and sprinkle brown sugar on top. Cook, stirring occasionally, until apples turn light brown, about 5 minutes. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until apples are golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes.
3. Remove the pan from heat. Quickly pour the batter around the edge of the pan, then over the apples; place the pan in the oven. Reduce the oven heat to 425 degrees and cook until brown and puffed, 16 to 17 minutes. With a heatproof spatula loosen the pancake. Invert the pancake onto a serving platter, dust it with confectioners' sugar, and serve immediately, accompanied by the warm maple syrup.