Apple Dumplings Of Another Kind

This is not the traditional recipe for apple dumplings, which are cored apples, seasoned with spices and butter and then wrapped up in dough and baked. These dumplings are more of what many people think of AS dumplings, being a dough cooked in boiling water. Apples are generally mild tasting, so using a lot of spices can really overwhelm their flavor. I used some apple juice as the basis for a sauce, or sort of icing, as the topping for the dumplings. I just used a small pinch of cinnamon to dust each serving. The basic recipe for the dumplings themselves comes from Germany, with my adjustments, and the Germans often serve them with a red wine based sauce.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sugar
grated peel of one lemon
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 large apple finely chopped (I chose not to peel the apple, but you most certainly can do so)
1/2 cup apple juice or apple cider
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (depending upon desired thickness)
cinnamon for dusting

Beat together the butter and sugar. Mix in the lemon peel and eggs. Mix the baking powder into the flour, add the milk and mix with the lemon peel/egg to form a dough. Mix in the finely chopped apple. Drop tablespoon size amounts of dough into a pot of lightly salted simmering water. The dumplings will float after a short time, but let them cook for a total of about 5 minutes thereafter, using a long spoon to make sure none of the dumplings stick to the bottom of the pan, and to make sure the dumplings are turned a couple of times during the cooking time. Remove dumplings with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. For the icing/sauce: mix 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar into the apple juice. Mix in more sugar depending upon how thick you want the sauce. Spoon some sauce over each serving of dumplings and dust very lightly with cinnamon.

WORD HISTORY:
Thirst-This word, distantly related to "terra" (ground, land), a word of Latin derivation borrowed by English, goes back to Indo European "ters," which had the notion, "to dry, to become dry." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "þurstu" ^ (equals modern, "thurstu"), meaning, "dryness in the throat;" thus, "thirst." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "þurst" (="thurst"), which then became "thurst," before the modern version. The verb form in Old English was "þyrstan" ("to thirst"), and it also had the figurative meaning, "to strongly desire," a meaning that has continued to this day. Relatives in the other Germanic languages (nouns): German has "Durst," Low German Saxon "Dörst," ^^ West Frisian "toarst," Dutch "dorst,'' Danish "tørst," Icelandic "þorsti" (not to be confused with their word for "thirsty," which is, "þyrstur"), Norwegian "tørst," Swedish "törst."

^ The 'þ' is called a "thorn," an old letter/symbol in the English alphabet, as well as some other alphabets in Germanic languages, as it came from the old Germanic runes, the letters/symbols used by the Germanic tribes for their writings. It is still used by Icelandic (see above in words related to "thirst"). It is written as "th" in modern English. 

^^ Once spelled exactly as its English cousin, "thurst," in the Middle Ages.