P-Dub & Apple Dumplings

Have you heard of the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond? I guess a better question is, who hasn't heard of her? The Pioneer Woman is an amazing food blogger who partially inspired the creation of the Sasquatch Willow blog. She's like the Wonder Woman blogger of the Midwest

It's no surprise that when we found out she was having a book signing not so far away, (a bit of an understatement there, it was a four hour drive) we knew we had to go!

So, we began our pilgrimage. We managed to avoid a traffic jam. Saw a dead horse. Cried about the dead horse. Became turned around in the Ohio State medical area. Saw a giant coffee cup. Stopped at Tim Horton's. And watched a kid devour a cupcake. 

Finally, we met the Pioneer Woman aka P-Dub. 

Let's not look at this like a bad photo. Let's look at it as an artistic expression of P-Dub's Wonder Woman-ness.

After the books were signed and small pleasantries exchanged, we headed off to dinner at a place called The Old Mohawk. 

What did I learn through all of this? 

1. The Pioneer Woman aka P-Dub aka Ree Drummond is even nicer in person than she seems on her blog.
2. I'm not very good at the book signing small talk thing. I should probably work on that.
3. Food places with crazy names are always the best (Stop by The Old Mohawk if you happen to be in the German Village area of Columbus, Ohio.)

This wouldn't be a proper blog post without a recipe of some sort, so I decided to test out P-Dub's recipe for Apple Dumplings. These really couldn't be any easier unless someone else made them for you.

Easy Peasy Apple Dumplings

Yields: 24 Dumplings 

Ingredients:

3 Granny Smith Apples

3 cans of crescent roll dough

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter (salted)

1 cup of granulated sugar

2/3 cup of brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon + 3 tablespoons of cinnamon 

1 - 20 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew (not diet)

Prep:

Preheat your oven to 350*F. Grease a large pan for the dumplings. Peel and core your apples, cutting each of them into 8 slices. Unroll your crescent dough and separate the "triangles". 

Roll up an apple slice in triangle of dough and place into your pan. Make sure to avoid crowding the dumplings in the pan, otherwise they won't be able to expand while baking. 

Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Add the sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and one teaspoon of cinnamon. Give it a couple of stirs but don't worry about the lumps. Pour mixture over each of the dumplings and into your pan. 

Pour Mountain Dew around the perimeter of the pan until it's about 2/3 of the way up the sides of the pan. I only used about 3/4 (15 ounces) of the bottle. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon over the top of the dumplings and put your pan in the oven. Bake dumplings for 30-45 minutes, until they are light brown and crispy on the top.

Tips:

I made a lot of dumplings with this recipe, but you can change it to your liking. Just remember that one apple + one can of crescent rolls equals 8 dumplings. Adjust down the rest of the recipe accordingly.

Also, for lactose tolerant folks out there, serve it with vanilla ice cream. It's ahhhhmazing.

Recipe adapted from the Pioneer Woman.