Apple Dumpling Day

What the day is

Apple Dumpling Day is observed on September 17. A dumpling is a whole apple, cored and filled, wrapped entirely in pastry and baked, and it is strongly associated with Pennsylvania Dutch cooking.

Origin and background

The design does something a pie cannot. Sealed inside pastry, the apple cooks in its own moisture with nowhere for the vapor to go, so it softens thoroughly without drying, and the butter and sugar packed into the cored center melt and combine with the juice the apple releases. That mixture cannot escape or evaporate, so it reduces into a genuine syrup inside the shell. Cut one open and the sauce was made by the apple itself.

The variety matters more here than in most apple cooking, because the fruit is cooked whole and has to hold together. An apple that breaks down into sauce leaves a bag of pastry with liquid in it, so firm baking varieties are the safe choice, and the softer eating apples are not.

The construction problem is geometry. Pastry is rolled flat and an apple is a sphere, and flat material wrapped around a curved solid has to go somewhere, which is why the corners are drawn up and pleated rather than stretched. Stretched pastry thins at the shoulders and splits there first, letting the syrup out, which is the usual failure. Slicing a small flat face on the base of the apple helps it sit still and gives the seam a place to rest.

A dumpling is baked in a dish rather than on a sheet for the same reason, since any leak should be caught and spooned back over rather than burned onto the oven floor.

Traditionally it was eaten for breakfast, which is a better idea than it sounds.

How to take part

• Use a firm baking apple, not a soft eating one.
• Pleat the pastry rather than stretching it over the shoulders.
• Cut a flat base so it sits still and the seam stays on top.
• Bake in a dish, so a leak can be spooned back over.
• Serve warm, with cream, and try one for breakfast.