Gooey warm apple dumplings

[angrychef]

Our sales manager wants me to make apple dumplings like his grandma used to make. The way he described it was individual apple dumplings baked together in a square pan with cinnamon caramel sauce until everything is gooey. Is this a midwest kinda thing? I like using a precooked apple filling for the dumplings(made from scratch) and piedough. Has anyone a recipe or experience with this. I'm trying to decide whether the piedough would work better than a cobbler/biscuit type of dough. Thanks.

[W.DeBord]

I've made it before. I suppose it is a midwestern type of recipe, but I don't know anyone who bothers with that much work anymore. Truth is this isn't a quickie easy thing like your manager might think. Plus it doesn't reheat as nicely as I'd like and the crust you can get turns soft pretty quick cause their juicy......If I was you I'd do my best to stear him into a cobbler version.

I made individual ones using whole apples and pie crust and the darn things opened up on me while baking (tried them another time and they did the same)...but they did taste very good. I would definately stear you away from using any precooked apples because they over cook in this dish naturally... by the time the crusts sets and you pull them from the oven then they cool down in the center (it retains heat) their SOFT.

The cinnamon caramel sauce comes from the filling. I stuffed my like an apple pie basicly (so it's the carmelized sugar and cinnamon melted that oozes out of the apples just like pie) but this often has added raisins and nuts.....but you can stuff yours with anything or nothing but apple.

To the best of my knowledge pie crust is a must to be apple dumplings.For resources I know both Pillsbury and Marlene Sorosky have published recipes for this. I think Martha has it in her soft cover dessert book too.

[mudbug]

According to one website it's a Pennsylvania Dutch Recipe

Apple Dumplings with Caramel Sauce

More:

Caramel Apple Dumplings for Thanksgiving

Caramel Apple Dumplings quick and easy scroll down

Most versions are done on the stove and served with ice cream.

[angrychef]

Thanks Wendy and Cchiu. I made a sample today and he raved about them. I baked the dumplings separately and made a sauce with cider, brown sugar and a bit of butter(reduce til thick). The dumplings are then rewarmed with the drizzled sauce in a hotel pan. The dumplings were easy and fast to make with small circles of piedough wrapped around the filling with the four corners pinched off to look like a square, with the filling poking out a bit at the center which is then covered with streusel.