Family Food Traditions: Episode 1

Apple Dumplings

Every family has some traditions of cooking the same foods again and again. With most people its a fancy dessert for the holidays, but it can even be something as simple as meatloaf on Mondays (I mean, Taco Tuesday is a thing, right?). I grew up with Apple Dumplings.

You’re picturing a dessert, right? A hollow apple, filled with syrup and nuts, wrapped in pastry and baked to a golden, crispy goodness and served with vanilla ice cream and caramel syrup. I didn’t hear of that creation until I was in my twenties. In our house apple dumplings were a standard Friday dinner.

Making enough for our family meant it was an all day affair, and everyone helped. There were so many contests to see who could get the longest apple peel (I have learned how to get the whole peel in one long curly strip. I win.) The sliced apples would be rolled up in a biscuit dough and baked in a simple syrup, then served with milk.

I ran out of apples. I always hated making the dough, and I realize now that as a child I wasn’t strong enough to knead it for the right amount of time. Today I cheated. I used pancake mix to make a sweet biscuit. I worked beautifully.

Spread the dough with butter and sprinkle the apples generously with cinnamon. Roll it, slice it, and pan it like a cinnamon roll. Sometimes we’d cut them with floss instead of a knife, just to shake things up a bit.

This is where I really varied from Family Tradition; instead of a simple syrup with red food dye, I used maple syrup and hot water. It brought the dinner much closer to the flavor of the dessert, and I like the change. It also made it more likely that the kids would try it.

And they did try it. Every one of them had two bites, and declared it good. Then they all walked away. I’m trying to look at it as a success. Nick wasn’t there for some reason, I did dinner all by myself, the kids didn’t fight me at all, and they actually tried something I made without complaining.

And like pizza, cold apple dumplings make a wonderful breakfast!