Baked Apple Dumpling

A complete dumpling in five sentences, with quantities left entirely to the cook. The gaps are easy to fill once you know the proportions the writer assumed.

• Hot oven"Hot" in books of this period is usually taken as somewhere around 400-450F. Start at 425F for about 15 minutes to set and colour the pastry, then drop to 350F for another 25-35 minutes so the apple cooks through without the crust burning.
• Pastry quantityThe recipe gives no amounts. A standard double-crust pie pastry, roughly 2 cups flour to 2/3 cup fat, will cut into about four 7-inch squares, which would give one apple per square and four dumplings from the batch.
• Filling amountsPer apple, figure a rounded tablespoon of sugar, a teaspoon of butter, a good pinch of cinnamon and two or three whole cloves, or a smaller pinch of ground. Whole cloves should be fished out at the table.
• Choosing the appleUse a firm baking apple that holds shape -- Granny Smith, Northern Spy. A soft eating apple collapses into sauce and bursts the pastry seams.
• SealingThis is the hinge. Damp the edges before you bring the four points together and pinch the seams shut along their whole length, not just at the tip. Any gap lets the syrup run out and the bottom crust turn to paste.
• Baking dishSet the dumplings well apart in a shallow buttered pan or on a rimmed baking sheet. The pan catches whatever sugar does escape, which would otherwise burn on the oven floor.
• Hard sauceHard sauce is creamed butter and powdered sugar, about half a cup of butter to a cup and a half of sugar, flavoured with vanilla, brandy or nutmeg and chilled firm. It is served cold in a spoonful on the hot dumpling so it melts down over it.
• DonenessA thin skewer pushed through the crust should meet no resistance in the apple, and the juices at the seams should be bubbling and syrupy rather than watery.