These Apple Dumplings are the perfect combination of apples, cinnamon, and sugar, all wrapped up in a perfectly flaky biscuit. They’re the greatest comfort food!
Ingredients
There’s only a handful of simple ingredients needed to make these irresistible apple dumplings.
- Refrigerated Buttermilk Biscuits – Using store-bought biscuits makes this recipe super easy.
- Apple Pie Filling – You can make your own apple pie filling or buy it from the grocery store.
- Brown Sugar – Using brown sugar will sweeten the dumplings and give them a little bit of molasses flavor.
- Cinnamon – Cinnamon gives the dumplings their classic warm flavor and aroma.
- Unsalted Butter – I prefer to use unsalted butter but if you only have salted butter, you can substitute it.
- Turbinado Sugar – I love to keep this in my pantry but if you don’t have it you can use regular granulated sugar or sugar in the raw.
Variations
When baking, I like to stay pretty close to an original recipe but there are a few ways to jazz these up.
- Filling – Swap out the apple filling for other fruity varieties.
- Spices – Add nutmeg, allspice, ground ginger, pumpkin pie spice, or other warm spices in addition to, or in place of, the cinnamon.
- Caramel – Sprinkle in some caramel chips.
- Nuts – Add chopped walnuts, pecans, or peanuts.
- Cranberries – Give the dumplings a bit of tart flavor by adding fresh cranberries.
- Cheese – While this is a sweet treat, cheddar pairs beautifully with apples. Sprinkle in some shredded cheddar to add a savory layer of flavor.
- Filling – Make your own filling using your favorite apples. Granny Smith apples, Honeycrisp, braeburn, and pink lady are some of the best apples to use. Using a mix of sweet and tart apples is a great way to get tons of flavor.
- Extract – For a warm aroma, pour in just a little bit of vanilla extract. Or, for nutty flavor try using almond extract.
- Larger Version – Instead of making the individual dumplings, line a baking dish with half of the dough, spread the filling inside, and top it with the remainder of the dough and spices.
- Dough – Instead of biscuit dough, try crescent rolls. Peel apart the crescents and first line the muffin tin wells with them before adding the apple mixture and topping with the remaining crescents. Or, use pie crust and make it in a pie pan.
How to Make Amish Apple Dumplings
The process for this apple dumpling recipe quite easy and the only thing you’ll be doing from scratch is making cinnamon and sugar, although you can even buy that in a jar if you wanted.
- Slice the biscuits. Start by cutting each biscuit in half lengthwise. You’ll have 16 thinner circles.
- Prepare the tin. Grease your standard size muffin tin. These usually have 12 wells, so you’ll have 4 free. I’ve recently started to use silicone muffin pans for stuff that doesn’t use a cupcake liner and they work like a dream!
- Add the dough to the tin and par bake. Using your fingers, press 8 of the halved biscuit doughs into the wells. Parcook these for 3 minutes. If you skip this step, the bottoms will be a little soggy. Remove from the oven.
- Fill the dough. Then place a small amount of butter, cinnamon and brown sugar in each muffin, topped with apple pie filling and another dose of butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. The brown sugar and cinnamon will mix with the butter making a sauce right in the dumpling!
- Seal. Top each dumpling with the remaining 8 biscuits halves and try to pinch them together to seal. They should still be a tad gummy after parcooking. Poke a hole in each so the steam can release.
- Add cinnamon and sugar. Top each with a sprinkle of ground cinnamon and turbinado sugar. If you don’t have turbinando, regular granulated sugar will do.
- Bake and rest. Bake until the opts are golden brown in a preheated oven. Allow them to rest for 3-5 minutes before removing from the tin and serving.
What to Serve with Apple Dumplings
Traditional Amish dumplings would be swimming in a pool of brown sugar syrup and eaten with a spoon. Personally, I like to eat mine with my hands and no syrup at all.
However, you can also use other sauces. Some of my favorites are Caramel Sauce, Sweetened Condensed Milk Caramel , Apple Cider Syrup , and Dutch Honey Syrup.
And while you can eat them for breakfast, they’re also great for dessert. Try serving them with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Common Questions
Apple dumplings consist of a sweetened and spiced apple filling that’s encased in biscuit dough.
The two reasons that dumplings may not have the desired texture are that they were overcooked or the dough was overworked.
Apple dumplings were likely first made in the northeast in the United States.
Storage
These types of recipes almost always taste better fresh, so I highly suggest enjoying them fresh from the oven. But if not, allow to cool fully and store in an airtight container at room temperature. They will keep for 3-5 days.
If you want to reheat them, place in a 250°F oven for 3-4 minutes or wrap in a paper towel and microwave on 50% power for 20 seconds.
Refrigerator
While you can keep the dumplings in the fridge for 3-5 days, I prefer not to. They tend to become dry when refrigerated.
Freezer
I do not suggest freezing apple dumplings. You can do it, but the biscuit dough doesn’t defrost to a crispy, buttery flake.
More easy apple recipes:
Easy Apple Dumpling Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 can refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
- 1 cup apple pie filling
- 1/4 cup brown sugar , divided
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon , divided
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter , divided
- 1 tablespoon turbinado sugar*
- Cooking Spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Unwrap refrigerated biscuit dough. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray.
- Lengthwise, cut each biscuit in half. Take one biscuit half and flatten it down with your palm. Arrange and press into muffin tin. Continue with 7 other halves. You will have 8 disks of dough remaining for the tops of the biscuits. Parcook for 3 minutes.
- Meanwhile, chop up apple pie filling into small pieces.
- Remove the muffin tin. Place a small pad of butter (about 1/4 teaspoon, maybe a little less), a pinch of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar into the bottom of each biscuit mold. Fill each mold with apple filling. Top each with a small pad of butter (about 1/4 teaspoon, maybe a little less), a pinch of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar. Ingredients might mound over the top, that is fine.
- Using the remaining biscuit halves, cover each mold and pinch (as best you can) the edges together. Using a sharp knife cut a small hole in the top of each biscuit for steam to release.
- Sprinkle the tops with more cinnamon and turbinado sugar, pressing down lightly to secure.
- Return to the oven at 400°F and bake for 12-14 minutes. Biscuits will be lightly browned on top. Allow to cool for 2-3 minutes.
- Serve with your favorite sauce or plain.
- If you tried this recipe, come back and let us know how they were in the comments or ratings.
Notes
Nutrition
Excellent recipe. I used it for a little leftover apple pie filling from a pie. I didn’t want to waste it.
Hi I want to make this, are the buttermilk biscuits an 8 oz can? tysm
Hi Cindy- great question that I should specify in the recipe. LOL. It is the 8-10 ounce can. Some are slightly larger if you have extra large or fluffy biscuits- either will work, but fluffy might take a little longer to cook. I’ll add this into the written recipe.
These would be so great to serve during Fall and Thanksgiving brunches.
Easy and perfect for fall and winter!