Friday Favorite: Georgian Apple Dumplings

This week’s Favorite is a culinary treat, courtesy of Sasha Cottman. Born in England, but having lived most of her life in Australia, Sasha feels fortunate to have family on both sides of the world. Her love for Regency Romance derives from a lifelong passion for history and a mistaken enrollment in a romance writing course. You can follow Sasha and find out more about her and her books on her website: http://www.sashacottman.com

Apple Dumplings

by Sasha Cottman

This recipe for apple dumplings comes from The Experienced English House- keeper, 1789.

Ingredients

For making the pastry you can either use these ingredients or buy pastry sheets.

8 oz (250g) flour, 1 egg yolk, 4 oz (125g) butter, or butter and lard, A pinch of salt.

4 good eating apples. Cream, or custard to serve. We used vanilla custard.

4 tsp marmalade, or sultanas, or jam or sugar and cinnamon. We used sultanas and cinnamon in one dumpling and blackberry conserve in the others. You could use any sort of sweet filing.

Method

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C/Gas Mark 6.

Make the pastry or get the frozen pastry sheets out of the freezer. Divide the pastry into 4 equal portions and roll them out thin. This is why I used pastry sheets.

Peel and core the apples. If you don’t have an apple corer, you could cut the apple in half, cut out the seeds, etc. and then put the apple together again when you wrap the pastry around it. I did try to core the first apple with a sharp knife but made such a mess that only 3 apples made it into the oven.

Lay each apple on the pastry, allowing the pastry to come up a little more than halfway up the apple.

Put the filing inside the apple. Cut a small square of pastry to go over the top. I smoothed the pastry joins, etc. with a little warm water and clean fingers. The leaves and worm were an added decoration.

Spray an oven tray with some baking spray and a little on the top of the pastry to help it brown.

Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes and serve hot.