Apple Roll
4 medium sized apples 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 pint water Select apples that will cook quickly, peel, core and chop fine. Put sugar and water in deep baking pan over very slow fire. While syrup is cooking slowly make rich biscuit dough. Roll out about 1/2 inch thick, spread with chopped apples and roll into a long roll; cut into pieces about 1 1/2 or 2 inches long; place with cut side down in hot syrup; put small piece of shortening on top and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake in hot oven until apples are done and the crust golden brown. Turn out on platter and pour syrup around them. These can be served with plain or whipped cream. Peaches or other fruit may be used in place of apples.
A syrup-baked dumpling roll of the type usually called apple dumplings or apple roly-poly. The original assumes you already know how to make a baking powder biscuit dough, so the quantities below fill that gap.
- The hinge: syrup depthThe syrup should come roughly halfway up the pieces, not cover them. Submerged tops steam instead of browning, and the whole point of the dish is a golden crust sitting in caramel.
- "Rich biscuit dough"A standard baking powder biscuit of the period runs about 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/3 to 1/2 cup shortening or butter, and about 3/4 cup milk. "Rich" signals the higher fat end, which is what keeps the crust from turning to paste in the syrup.
- "Hot oven"The recipe gives no figure; in period usage this is roughly 400-450F. Bake until the crust is deep gold and the syrup around the edges has thickened and darkened slightly.
- VesselA "deep baking pan" that goes on the stove first and then into the oven means a metal roasting pan or a 9x13 cake pan set over low heat. Any heavy oven-safe skillet or braiser works better; the syrup should be hot when the dough goes in.
- "Very slow fire"Dissolve the sugar in the water over low heat only. This is not meant to reduce to a candy syrup, just to be hot and clear when the pieces are set into it.
- Apples"Apples that will cook quickly" means a soft, breaking variety such as McIntosh or Cortland, which collapse into sauce inside the roll. A firm Granny Smith will still be crunchy when the crust is done.
- Cutting the rollChill the filled roll 15 minutes before slicing and use a serrated knife; a soft dough loaded with wet fruit tears otherwise. Expect 8 to 10 pieces, serving 4 to 5.
- Other fruitPeaches and berries carry far more juice than apples. Reduce the pint of water to about 1 1/2 cups or the syrup will stay thin and soak the crust.
This is the standard American apple dumpling in its sheet-and-spiral form, often said to be a cousin of the English roly-poly pudding, moved from the pudding cloth into a baking pan of sugar syrup. The technique belongs to the era when chemical leavening replaced suet crusts and yeast doughs in home baking, and the recipe exists partly to demonstrate that a biscuit dough can stand in for pastry. The closing note that "peaches or other fruit may be used" is characteristic of the period's household economy, where a formula was expected to absorb whatever the season had produced.