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Blackberry Drop Dumplings
Flour the hands, take and shape spoonfuls of the soft-dough--either of the egg dumplings or made with one whole egg, or none--into biscuit shapes; put a spoonful of ripe berries in the middle, close up and drop the dumplings into a pan of boiling milk and water and cook inside the oven about twenty minutes. Baste with the milk and water twice to glaze. Serve with sauce. Halves of peaches can be used in the same way.
A little dexterity, acquired by practice in handling the soft dough is usually rewarded with light snow flake affairs that do not turn heavy with waiting.
This is a cross-referenced recipe: it assumes you already have the book's soft dumpling dough at hand, and it gives neither oven temperature nor yield. Both are recoverable from the method.
- The dough"Soft-dough" here refers back to the book's own dumpling dough, used either in its egg version, with one whole egg, or with none. The page gives no ingredients; a soft biscuit-type dough — wetter than rolled biscuit dough, just short of batter — fits the instruction to flour the hands, and the yield will depend on how much dough you have.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. The liquid is the guide: the recipe has the dumplings dropped into boiling milk and water, so the pan should stay at a bare boil around them. A moderate oven will do this in a shallow pan; too hot and the milk scorches at the pan edges, too cool and the dough sits sodden.
- The liquidThe recipe says only "milk and water" and gives no proportion; equal parts is a reasonable reading. Since the tops are basted, the dumplings evidently are not covered, so they part-steam and part-bake rather than poach outright.
- The hingeHandle the dough as little as possible and get it into the hot pan fast. The "snow flake" texture comes from baking powder that has not yet spent itself; dumplings shaped and left standing on the board go tough and heavy, exactly as the last line warns.
- Sealing the fruitRipe blackberries leak. Pinch the dough closed firmly and set the dumplings seam-side down. A spoonful means about a tablespoon of berries; more than that and the seam bursts and the milk turns purple and curdled-looking.
- BastingTwice during the twenty minutes, spoon the pan liquid over the tops. This is what gives the glaze — without it the exposed dough dries to a floury crust.
- PeachesThe recipe allows peach halves in place of the berries with no further direction. Skinned halves set cut side in will hold their shape; very juicy fruit risks bursting the seam.
- "Serve with sauce"The recipe does not say which. A sweet pudding sauce is the likely intention — hard sauce, a thin custard, or the same berries crushed with sugar and a little water. Serve hot, while the dumplings are at their lightest.
Fruit boiled or steamed inside a dough casing is one of the oldest sweet forms in English and American cooking, and by the late nineteenth century the technique ran along two lines: the suet-crust pudding tied in a cloth, and the quicker baking-powder dumpling that this recipe belongs to. Chemical leaveners made the second possible — a dough that could be mixed, shaped and cooked quickly, which is why the recipe insists on speed and warns against letting the dumplings wait. Baking the dumplings in a shallow pan of milk and water rather than dropping them into a pot has the practical advantage that a whole panful cooks at once and can be basted to a uniform glaze. Blackberries appear often in American cookbooks of the period partly because they were gathered rather than bought, ripening wild through late summer.