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Baked Lemon Dumplings
2 cups flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons shortening milk 1 lemon 3 tablespoons seeded raisins, chopped 1 tablespoon melted shortening 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 1/2 cup sugar Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and with the finger tips rub in shortening. Wet to a paste with chilled milk and roll out into a thin sheet. Cut in rounds and place in the center of each two tablespoons of the following mixture: Remove the edible pulp from lemon and add the grated yellow rind and juice, raisins, melted shortening, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and sugar. Form the paste over the filling in dumpling form, set them in a well greased pan, sprinkle with sugar and bake in a very hot oven until crisp and brown. Serve with a liquid sauce. Serves 6.
A baking-powder pastry wrapped around a spiced lemon-and-raisin filling. The dough is closer to a rich biscuit than a pie crust, so it wants speed and a hot oven.
- Oven temperature"A very hot oven" in period usage means roughly 450F or above; 425-450F will do in a modern oven. Reckon on something like 20-25 minutes, until the dumplings are browned and firm to a light press.
- The filling is the hinge"Remove the edible pulp from lemon" means cut away the peel and bitter white pith and break the flesh apart, discarding seeds and membrane. If pith goes in, the whole dumpling turns bitter. One medium lemon gives roughly 1/3 cup of pulp and juice; with the sugar and raisins you will have about a cupful, of which the recipe's two tablespoons apiece uses some three-quarters.
- Milk quantityNo amount is given because it varies with the flour. Expect about 3/4 cup of cold milk for 2 cups of flour, added a little at a time until the dough just holds together.
- ShorteningIn a book of this period shortening means lard or a hydrogenated vegetable fat. Butter works and tastes better; keep it cold for the rubbed-in fat, and melt the tablespoon for the filling as directed.
- Rounds and sealingThe recipe wants a thin sheet, so roll it out thin; cut rounds large enough to close over two tablespoons of filling, perhaps 4-5 inches across. Pinch the edges firmly and set them seam-side down, or the juice runs out and caramelises onto the pan.
- NutmegGrate it fresh from a whole nutmeg, as the instruction assumes. Pre-ground nutmeg at this proportion will read as dusty rather than aromatic.
- The sauce"A liquid sauce" is left to the cook: a thin lemon or vanilla pudding sauce, hard sauce melted down, or simply cream. Something thin is wanted, since the dumpling itself is dry and crisp.
- YieldSix dumplings, one per person. They are best within an hour of baking, while the crust is still crisp.
Baked dumplings of this kind are the thrifty cousin of pie: a single sheet of biscuit dough, a spoonful of fruit, and no dish to line. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American cookbooks are full of them, most often built around apple, and a lemon and a handful of raisins had the advantage of keeping in the store cupboard when fresh fruit was out of season. The baking-powder dough, rubbed shortening and chilled milk place the recipe after chemical leaveners had come into general use in home baking.