Apple and Marzipan Dumplings are both delicious and pretty. Made with homemade marzipan and decorated with pastry leaves, these dumplings are heavenly and easy to make!
Apple & Marzipan Dumplings are utterly delicious and the perfect autumnal dessert. Apples are stuffed with homemade marzipan wrapped in puff pastry and decorated with puff pastry leaves.
I have many fond childhood memories of Peter’s Tea Room and Baker’s Shop in Weybridge; all the cakes and delicacies are etched in my memory.
One such treat I remember seeing in the window and occasionally having at home was their Apple Dumplings.
Louise Johncox has recreated her father Peter’s recipes in her book The Baker’s Daughter which I used as the basis for my inspiration but I then went completely off-piste and did my own thing.
As half my family just doesn’t like dried fruit I couldn’t go down that route so decided that some homemade marzipan would be a fabulous core for these apple dumplings.
For my first attempt, I tried using a sheet of ready-rolled pastry. This didn’t work as you need a square of pastry and not a rectangle.
I also tried trimming off excess pastry but this just led to the pastry splaying open and leaving gaps in the finished product, and I didn’t let the pastry rest in the fridge!
Another mistake I made was leaving the skin on the apples, resulting in my apples turning mush.
It all felt like my first driving test, you get all your mistakes over and done with in one go and then you know what not to do the second time,
I’m happy to say I passed my driving test 2nd time and also succeeded in making these gorgeous Apple & Marzipan Dumplings 2nd time!
If you don’t have any ground almonds to hand don’t buy them just whizz up some almonds or flaked almonds like I did.
On my first attempt, I used ground almonds but I think the marzipan tasted even better when using freshly ground almonds (I use my herb chopper attachment from my stick blender).
I’m pleased to say everyone loved my Apple and Marzipan Dumplings – even my son who had turned his nose up at my first attempt and doesn’t like marzipan!
Gosh it’s difficult sometimes catering to everyone’s likes and dislikes, isn’t it?
Luckily I often win the taste battle as kids in particular can have preconceived ideas about what they will and won’t like.
I just say “Try it and if you don’t like it you don’t have to eat it”. Once they’ve had the first taste an empty bowl usually ensues!
Do you have a childhood memory of a treat that you’ve yet to bake? Do let me know in the comments.
More Recipes Using Apple and/or Marzipan
Once you’ve tried my delicious Apple & Marzipan Dumplings you should also check out the following recipes!
- Apple & Blueberry Tarte Tatin
- Rhubarb & Marzipan Cake
- Rhubarb & Blackberry Cobbler
- Quick Apple Puddings
- Apple Meringue
- Spiced Apple Lattice Pie
- Burnt Apple & Bourbon Ice Cream
- Ella’s Quick Apple (and Apricot) Pies
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Apple & Marzipan Dumplings
Ingredients
- 4 Dessert apples small I used Gala
- 1 Pack of Puff Pastry 500g
- For marzipan filling:
- 30 g Ground Almonds I ground my own
- 30 g Icing Sugar
- 1 ½ to 2 tsp Egg white taken from egg for egg wash
- 1 Egg whisked for egg wash
- Caster sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- Mix the ground almonds, icing sugar and egg white together to form the marzipan paste. (Whisking the egg white will make it easier to measure out).
- Cut off 425g of pastry from the block and roll out to a 36cm square on a floured surface, trim and cut into 4 x 18cm squares.
- Peel and core the first apple and stuff with a ¼ of the marzipan (you can do this from the top and bottom). Doing one at a time will prevent the apples from going brown.
- Place the apple in the centre of one of the squares.
- Brush a little water on the outer edges of the pastry and draw up one corner to meet the middle, then do the same with the next corner sealing and tucking in the pastry as you go following your way round in one direction until you reach the end.
- Repeat above with the next 3 apples.
- To decorate, roll out the pastry trimmings and cut straight lines down and diagonally across to make diamond shapes and score with a knife to make them look like leaves. You need 16.
- Using the apple corer cut out 4 circles.
- Decorate the apple dumplings with the leaves using a little water to seal and finish with a little circle of pastry on top.
- Place on a lightly greased baking tray and pop in fridge for 20 minutes.
- Pre-heat oven to 190⁰C.
- Brush the apple dumplings with egg wash and sprinkle with caster sugar.
- Place in the middle of oven for 40 minutes turning halfway through.
- Serve hot with cream or ice cream.
- Can also be reheated if needed later (about 15 – 20 mins at 150C⁰).
Helen
This look just gorgeous. Delicious and so pretty, too. Fab!
Camilla
Thank you Helen, these will definitely be made again and again:-)
sarah
Beautiful work, Camilla. I’m not a fan of marzipan myself but the family would go mad for these. I’d probably change it up for myself and make the rest with marzipan. They probably wouldn’t look as good as yours, though!! Hehe!
Sarah X
Camilla
Thanks Sarah, just think of it as ground almonds and icing sugar as my son doesn’t like marzipan either and he wolfed this down:-) Or just go for the classic struesel filling:-)
Ursula Hunt
These look lovely and a great desert
Camilla
Thank you Ursula:-)
Jan @GlugofOil
Love the presentation and love the apples but I don’t like marzipan – so reading your suggestion of adding fruit instead – I’m in!
Camilla
Thank you! Jan I think you might be surprised – it’s just ground almonds and icing sugar bound with a little egg white so nothing like shop bought marzipan or the stuff you find on a Battenburg:-)
Elena
The marzipan filling sounds delicious! 🙂
Camilla
Thanks Elena – works really well:)
Kavey
They look lovely, I particularly like the pretty pastry decorations on top!
Camilla
Pastry leaves were one of the things I picked up when I briefly worked catering many moons ago:-) I do a mean pastry rose too!
Johanna @ Green Gourmet Giraffe
Oh I love these – so gorgeous – we used to have baked apples – I didn’t like the skins but I loved the fruity filling – but I suspect that marzipan might go down well with my daughter who can be fussy about dried fruit and it is nice that you could add a few dried fruit to some and leave the others without.
Camilla
Thank you Johanna – yes you can really suit individual tastes here. My mum always baked apples with the fruit filling but I was never that keen!
Chris
Oh, what a treat. I’m in. I had apples stuffed with marzipan before, but with the puff pastry around it … even better.
Camilla
Thanks Chris – hope you get a chance to try them, they’re so good:-)
Heather Haigh
Oh, those look absolutely delicious, fabulous combination of flavours.
Camilla
Thank you Heather – they were lush:-)
William Gould
WOW! This could be my ideal dessert! Unfortunately, my wife hates marzipan with a passion…..
Camilla
William there’s no reason why she can’t have her apple stuffed with dried fruit, brown sugar and butter and you have yours with marzipan:-)
William Gould
Good thinking! I’ll work on it….
Camilla
This is the woman who put blackberries in one side of the apple crumble recently because hubby and daughter not keen but son and I are!