Home › Fruit Desserts › Old-Fashioned Cranberry Dumplings
Old-Fashioned Cranberry Dumplings
1 quart of cranberries 1 1/2 cups water 2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon salt 2 cups flour 2 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon sugar 3/4 cup milk 4 teaspoons baking powder Prepare a cranberry sauce of the first three ingredients. Make up a biscuit dough of the remaining materials, shape it into rounds, and steam them for twelve minutes. Serve with the cranberry sauce, accompanied by a hard sauce made of brown sugar and butter.
A steamed biscuit dumpling served with cranberry sauce and hard sauce — three simple components, but the original crams them into one ingredient list and leaves the salt and the steaming arrangement to guesswork.
- Which ingredients go whereThe "first three" are cranberries, water and sugar, so the teaspoon of salt belongs to the biscuit dough along with the flour, butter, tablespoon of sugar, milk and baking powder. A teaspoon of salt in two cups of flour is right for a sweet biscuit.
- A quart of cranberriesFresh cranberries were sold by dry measure; a quart is about a pound, or roughly 4 cups of berries. A standard 12-oz bag is close enough, with the water and sugar scaled down slightly if you want it less loose.
- The sauceBring berries, water and sugar to a simmer and cook 8 to 10 minutes, until the skins have burst and the liquid sheets off a spoon. It thickens considerably as it cools, so pull it while it still looks thin.
- Baking powderFour teaspoons to two cups of flour is generous by modern standards. With modern double-acting powder, 2 to 3 teaspoons will give ample lift.
- Steaming, not boilingSet the rounds on a rack or in a steamer basket over simmering water, well spaced, and keep the lid on for the full time. Lifting it drops the temperature and the dumplings sink. Twelve minutes suits rounds no thicker than an inch; thicker ones need 18 to 20, and are done when a skewer comes out clean.
- Steaming over the sauceIf you prefer, drop the dough in spoonfuls straight onto the hot cranberry sauce in a wide pan and cover tightly — the New England slump method. The bottoms take up the syrup and the tops steam.
- The hard sauceCream about half a cup of soft butter with a cup of brown sugar until no grit remains, then chill until firm. It is meant to be served cold on the hot dumpling so it melts; making it ahead is an advantage.
- YieldTwo cups of flour makes 8 to 10 dumplings, serving 6 to 8 with the sauce.
Steamed biscuit dough served with cooked fruit belongs to the New England family of grunts, slumps and cobblers, dishes that predate reliable home ovens and were cooked in a covered pot over the fire. Cranberries suited that tradition well: Vaccinium macrocarpon is native to the northeastern bogs, was cultivated commercially on Cape Cod from the early nineteenth century, and kept for months in a cool cellar, so it was one of the few fresh fruits available to a northern kitchen deep into winter.