Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Pastry

• 1 ¾ cups flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• ¾ tsp salt
• 10 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, cut into ¼ inch pieces
• 1/3 cup ice cold water

Filling and Sauce

• 5 or 6 small baking apples
• ¾ cup dark raisins or currants
• 4 tbsp cold butter
• ¾ cup apples cider
• ¾ cup water
• ½ cup sugar
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• Pinch of nutmeg

Instructions

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a mixing bowl. Use pasty blender to cut in butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the cold water and them mix the dough with your hands.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and pack into a ball. Knead it once or twice, then dust it with flour and divide it into 5 or 6 pieces. Flatten each piece into a ½ inch thick disk, wrap the disks individually in plastic wrap, and chill them for about one hour.

While the dough chills, core and peel the apples, leaving the lower third unpeeled so the fruit will hold together when cooked. Set the apples aside. Then butter a large, shallow baking dish and heat in oven to 400 degrees.

Working with one piece of dough at a time (while keeping the others chilled), roll the pastry into an 8-inch circle on a lightly floured surface, dusting your pin, if necessary to  keep it from sticking. Place an apple in the center of the circle. Fill the core loosely with raisins and press a teaspoonsize dap of butter into the top.

Cut triangle wedges about 2 inches long out of the pastry at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions. Reserve these scrapes to make pastry leaves later.

Using a pastry brush, lightly moisten all the dough edges with water. Fold one panel of the pastry up over the apple, followed by the adjacent panel, pressing them together to seal the seams. Fold up the remaining panels in this fashion as well.

Pinch the pastry together at the top of the apple to enclose the entire fruit, making sure the dough is well sealed and shaping the best stem you can manage. Cut the leaves from the pastry scrapes. Brush the undersides with water and gently press them onto the pastry-covered apples. Arrange the dumplings in the buttered baking dish, spaced evenly apart.

Bake the dumplings on the center oven rack for 15 minutes while you prepare the basting sauce.
Combine the remaining butter (there should be about 2 tbsp) cider, water, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium-size saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the sauce for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat.

After 15 minutes of baking time, reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Remove the dumplings from the oven and baste each one with some of the sauce. Pour the rest of the sauce into the pan and continue baking the dumplings for 30 to 45 minutes, basting every 10 to 15  minutes. When the apples are tender, transfer the pan to a cooling rack. Enjoy the dumplings warm or at room temperature.