Old-fashioned apple dumplings

Classic apple dumplings. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Apple dumplings just sound good. Ever since coming across a picture of apple dumplings in a 1970s Southern Living cookbook, I've wanted to bake them - warm fruit, filled with spices and nuts or candy (like Red Hots), encased in a sweet pastry, baked to golden goodness and topped with cream.

Making apple dumplings with delicious apples from the North Georgia mountains gives me a chance to use some special tools in my kitchen. I'm not a gadget junkie - I believe that a good set of knives and pots will get you through most recipes, but there are some specialized tools that don't take up much room in the gadget drawer and make fast, efficient work of some tasks - coring and sectioning apples, for example. I favor the corer pictured here on the left because it has a slide that pops out the core - I've broken several traditional corers just trying to remove the core from the tool. The corer/slicer on the right is handy when I need to section apples quickly and evenly - not a necessary item, to be sure, but it performs its job well.



Apple Gadgets by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


Making the pastry gives me an excuse to use one of the rolling pins my husband made for me a few years ago. He surprised me on my birthday with three rolling pins, each out of walnut, turned on a lathe. They’re displayed in a frame in my kitchen - a creative solution to an exposed pipe that didn’t fit into the soffit. Needing to cover the drain pipe, my clever husband crafted this open cabinet. The molding covers the drain pipe and my rolling pins are always at the ready.



Rolling pins in cabinet by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


The pin at the top is the prettiest and is employed during Christmas sugar cookie baking. The second is heaviest and is ideal for working with very cold, buttery doughs that need a solid thwack to get warmed up and workable. My favorite is the angled French pin, perfect for turning corners and shaping pastry into a round for a pie. I used the heavy pin with the flaky cream cheese pastry dough for the dumplings, sectioning the dough then rolling each piece into a 6-inch square.




Rolling out pastry by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



And then filling the apple with a mixture of brown sugar and pecans:



Apple on pastry by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



These are the apple dumplings, fresh from the oven:

Apple dumplings on baking sheet by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 

Cream Cheese Pastry for Apple Dumplings

Adapted from the "Pie and Pastry Bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into 12 pieces

2 cups bleached all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

4 1/2 ounces cold cream cheese (I used Neufchatel), cut into 4 pieces

2 tablespoons ice water

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

At least an hour before you plan to make the apple dumplings, make the pastry crust, so it will have time to chill out and relax.

1. In a food processor, combine the dry ingredients and stir together for a couple seconds.

2. Add the cream cheese and process for about 15 seconds or until mixture resembles crumbs. Add butter and process until all pieces are uniform and crumbly.

3. Using tube, pour in ice water and cider vinegar, slowly and process until incorporated. Dough will still be in pieces.

4. Remove the blade and dump the crumbly dough mixture into a large plastic bag. Using your fingers, press the mixture together. When it is a solid dough, press the air out, seal it and refrigerate for an hour or even overnight.



Apple Dumplings by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Apple Dumplings

1 recipe Cream Cheese Pastry

Flour for dusting

6 baking apples such as Golden Delicious

Juice of one half lemon

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup pecans, chopped

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1 egg white, lightly beaten

Demerara or granulated sugar for glazing

For garnish: lightly sweetened, softly whipped cream or  plain yogurt sweetened with honey and cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 425. Core apples, peel and brush with lemon juice.

2. In a small bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, pecans and spices.

3. Divide dough into 6 equal pieces and using your favorite rolling pin, one at a time, roll each piece of dough approximately 6 inches square. Place apple on pastry, fill cavity with sugar and pecan mixture. Brush edges of pastry with egg white. Bring opposite corners to the top of the apple and press seams together, being careful so that juices won't escape in the baking.

4. Place each dumpling on a parchment or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Brush with more egg white and sprinkle with demerara or granulated sugar. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes. When pastry is golden, remove from oven. Serve dumplings warm, garnished with sweetened whipped cream or yogurt, perhaps with cinnamon stirred in.

I'm writing about apples these first few weeks in November. See my other stories:

My State-Fair Ribbon-winning Apple pie

Apple tart

Apple crisp

Plus photos from Blue Ridge and Mercier's Orchard, in the heart of Georgia apple country.

Three A Cook and Her Books recipes that use apples:

Morning Glory Muffins
Mulligatawny
Kid-friendly sushi


Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

A twist on doughnuts and coffee: Bonuts with bacon

Krispy Kreme with coffee syrup, whipped cream & bacon bits. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 

 The French toast with the funny name, Bostock, seems to my mind to be easily adapted to Southern ingredients. I’m a Southern girl, without a doubt, and my daddy grew up hunting squirrels in the woods of Alabama with his trusty mutt Bo by side. Other famous Sons of the South include Bo Diddley, Bo Jackson (remember “Bo Knows”?), and American Idol runner-up Bo Bice. My husband reminds me of Bo Derek (native of southern California) and Bo Svensen (native of southern Sweden), to boost the argument. (well, he doesn't really remind me of Bo Derek.)

Krispy Kremes. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

In considering this week’s challenge, I decided to go seasonal, with pumpkin and ginger Bostock and local, with Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts. You know what I’m talking about - the ones in the box that screams “eat me!” I took a day-old doughnut, split, it toasted it, soaked it in coffee, heated it and topped it with sweetened whipped cream and christened the top with crunchy bacon bits.

If you’re counting calories and carbs, allow me outline the recipe in a useful way:

1. Deep fried fat and sugar dipped in
2. Sugared caffeine, covered with
3. Dairy fat and sugar, topped with
4. Fried, nitrate- and nitrite-enhanced pork fat. Mmmmm. Kinda makes me wonder what Junior Samples ate for breakfast.

I know it’s not vegan, vegetarian, raw or organic, and it may be more appropriate for Francis’ Sacrificial Lam stories over at Salon. All I know is that it tasted really, really good.

Bonuts with bacon. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Bonuts (Doughnut Bostock)

6 Krispy Kreme doughnuts

Coffee syrup (see recipe below)

Sweetened softly whipped cream

6 slices crisp-cooked bacon, chopped fine

1. Using a bread knife, carve off a thin slice from the bottom of each doughnut  (check for air holes - the thin slice is the cook’s treat). Soak each doughnut lightly in the coffee syrup, then place on plate. Put plate in microwave oven and zap for 15 to 30 seconds - just enough to warm up the doughnut. Garnish with whipped cream and bacon bits.

Coffee syrup

2 cups coffee

¼ cup sugar

1. Place in saucepan and let boil until reduced by half. Let cool to room temperature.

Sweetened Whipped Cream

1/2 cup heavy cream, very cold

1 1/2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a chilled mixing bowl, whip cream until it begins to thicken. Stir in sugar and vanilla and continue beating until soft peaks form. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

Text and images © 2010, Lucy Mercer.

We'll always have asparagus

We don’t choose the touchstones of a romance, they choose us. The little jokes, the comments that are benign to others, but hysterically funny to just us, are part of our story. Rick and Ilsa had “As Time Goes By,” and they had Paris. Scott and Lucy had an oil refinery (more on that later) and we will always have asparagus.



Creamy asparagus soup by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


Early in our courtship, we discovered that we liked to cook and tried to make meals together. I think we were putting together the ingredients for a stir-fry, and Scott bought asparagus. I probably said “eeww” because, truly, we eat what we’re fed at home and if your mother doesn’t eat asparagus, then neither do you. He told me I’d like it, and being a trusting sort of girl, I gave it a try. I was a convert from that first crispy, green, soy-drenched bite.

Since that time, I've stalked the verdant stalks like Euell Gibbons, savoring that earthy, mineral taste. But it's more than a taste and texture. Asparagus holds the promise of spring and renewal. That first bite in the early days of March shakes loose the heavy flavors of winter and prepares us for the produce yet to come. First asparagus, then blueberries, then tomatoes, zucchini, squash, all the abundance awaiting us. I look for the green stalks in early spring, and get embarrassingly giddy when they get nice and fat and the price drops.

Asparagus spears by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Each spring, when asparagus is plentiful, I make a sandwich that reminds me of our honeymoon, when we traveled to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. My husband’s uncle worked for the Hess Oil Refinery there and he treated us royally during our stay on the island. We ate at the best restaurants - I remember seafood at Top Hat, goat stew at the Buccaneer and conch fritters somewhere else. We snorkeled, we toured a historic sugar mill, we shopped for souvenirs, we saw the sights, concluding with every honeymooner's wish - a tour of the oil refinery. It was actually very interesting, just not what I expected to do on the trip - we’re probably the only couple who got a lecture in sweet light crude and other petroleum products on their honeymoon.

Back to the asparagus: down a narrow alleyway in Christiansted, we sat at a tiny restaurant for lunch. I wanted something simple like soup and a sandwich, found French onion soup and spied “asparagus sandwich” on the menu. I asked the waitress about it, and she said that it was a favorite dish of the cook’s. Keep in mind that I was a new bride and “asparagus sandwich” had the pleasant ring of girlie shower food. I ordered it. The soup was ok, but the sandwich was better. Sourdough bread, lightly toasted and spread with cream cheese, topped with steamed asparagus tips, sprouts and vinaigrette. I still make a version of this sandwich, and always think of St. Croix when I do. I’ve changed it up a little, losing the sprouts and seasoning the cream cheese.

Asparagus Cream Cheese Sandwich by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Crucian Asparagus Sandwich

4 ounces cream cheese, softened
Tablespoon or two of chopped fresh chives
Salt and pepper to taste
2 slices sturdy white or wheat bread (for open face, 4 for lidded version)
8 to 10 asparagus tips, about 2 or 3 inches in length

1. Toast the bread to desired degree of brownness. Place asparagus tips in a microwave-safe container and cover with water. Zap for 1 minute. Carefully drain hot water from the asparagus and then cover with cold water and ice cubes to set the bright green color. Drain cooled stalks on paper towels. Stir together softened cream cheese, chives, salt and pepper.

2. Assemble sandwiches: Spread cream cheese on toast, and neatly align asparagus tips on top. This can be served open face (very pretty) or with a lid.

This little sandwich just cries out for a companion, like a bowl of Creamy Asparagus Soup, adapted from Julia Child’s “The Way to Cook.” It’s a convenient partner for the sandwich, using the stalks for the soup and some remaining tips for garnish. Notice that it’s “creamy” not “cream of.“ Instead of adding dairy, rice is cooked with the onion and then pureed to give body without adding the calories of cream. I like this trick because it doesn’t diminish the intensity of the asparagus, like cream would. The celadon color is enchanting.

Creamy Asparagus Soup by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Creamy Asparagus Soup with Lemon Chive Butter

Soup
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup long-grain rice
4 to 8 cups of stock - vegetable or chicken
1 bunch asparagus
Salt to taste, pepper if desired

1. In a saucepan, melt butter and saute onion until soft, but not brown. Season with a bit of salt (¼ teaspoon or so). Add rice and stir. Add four cups of stock , cover, and cook rice until nearly soft, about 10 to 15 minutes.

2. While rice is cooking, trim asparagus by removing the bottom ¼ of the stalks. Chop remainder into 2 inch pieces. Save the asparagus tips and place them in a bowl and cover with water. Zap in microwave for one minute. Pour off hot water, add cool water and ice cubes. When cool and color is set, dry on paper towels. Save for garnish.

3. When rice is soft, stir in asparagus stems and let cook for about 5 minutes, pulling it off the heat before it loses the brilliant green color. Blitz in food processor or blender until smooth. With the processor, this takes several minutes, until the puree fluffs up. Taste for seasoning and gradually add stock to desired consistency. I prefer a texture somewhere between thin puree and thick soup. A note on seasoning: I’m not a fan of white pepper - I think it tastes like soap, but if you need pepper in your soup, you may want to add it. I think salt is all the seasoning this needs, especially if you make the lemon chive butter.

Lemon Chive Butter

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon snipped chives
1 teaspoon or so fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine all ingredients.
2. Serve the soup, garnished with reserved asparagus tips and a spoonful of lemon butter.

Serve this meal in spring, and you may hear, just faintly through the night, a piano and a song, our song:


“You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

“And when two lovers woo
They still say, "I love you."
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by.”