It's been grey and raining here since this afternoon...gotta love New England Weather.
I've been in the mood for something warm and sweet and gooey and wonderful... like this.
If you have any other names, please let me know!
Apple Cinnamon Monkey Dumplings
Ingredients:
- 1 tube of crescent roll dough (they make crescent roll dough sheets... technology is amazing.)
- 2 large apples (I like granny smith)
- 3/4 c. granulated sugar
- 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
- 3-4 Tbsp butter, divided
This is kind of a spin off of monkey bread... but I don't know why they call it monkey bread. I'm not too fond of monkeys. I think they're creepy.
So.
Preheat the oven to 350
Chop the apples into 1 inch pieces. Don't make them too much smaller or they'll turn to mush.
Mix the cinnamon and sugar in a medium sized bowl, adding more cinnamon or sugar to your liking (I'm a fan of more cinnamon myself).
Pop open the crescent rolls and roll the dough out into a sheet about half it's original thickness...If you stretch it too thin, the dough will tear when you try to make the dumplings.
Cut the sheet of dough in half. Cut each half into thirds the long way, then into sixths the other way...
like this... Take each square and fill with about 1/2 tsp of cinnamon-sugar mixture and 2-3 pieces of apple (this is obviously subject to change depending on the size of your squares...and how much love you wanna cram into each little dumpling)...melt the butter in a small dish.
Now for the actual baking... if you can get your hand on a bundt pan, PERFECT. Monkey bread is generally made in bundt pans so the hot air has a chance to circulate evenly through the pan. But since I know not every college student hapens to have one lying around, I've tried it with a loaf pan and it works just fine.
Butter the pan and place the dumplings in a layer on the bottom of the pan. pour about 1/3 of the butter over the layer and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Continue layering with dumplings, butter and cinnamon sugar until all the dumplings are used up.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the inner laters are no longer "doughy".
End result... delicious.
