Indulge in the warm, comforting embrace of our delicious Apple Dumplings. This easy recipe takes fresh apples, encases them in a delicate premade pie dough, and sweetened with a cinnamon sugar blend.
This easy apple dumpling recipe is baked to a golden brown perfection then generously drizzled with a luscious salted caramel rum sauce, creating a delicious dessert that's sure to steal the show!
This recipe is inspired by my love of all things salted caramel and apple. If you love this recipe you will also love this Salted Caramel Apple Cake recipe!
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Why you'll love this Apple Dumplings Recipe
Easy recipe: made with simple ingredients this apple recipe is the perfect fall dessert.
Comfort Food: sweet and tart flavors of apples with a warm, cinnamon-spiced pastry, creating a delectable contrast that's simply irresistible comfort food.
Versatile: the apples are left whole for ease of preparation in this recipe, but you can use apple slices in place of the whole apple, change up the spices by using ginger, nutmeg, or cardamon and brown sugar instead of white sugar.
🥘 Ingredients
- Refrigerated pie crust (1 crust): I always use Pillsbury refrigerated crusts, I feel it is the best. No name brands pie crust either seem to fall apart or are too thick.
- Fresh apples: choose a firm apple that will still hold it's shape well after baking and not break down into mush. The best apples to use are Cortland, Pink lady, Granny smith or Honeycrisp Apples
- Granulated sugar
- Ground cinnamon
- Butter
- Salted Caramel Sauce
- Dark rum (optional but adds great flavor!)
- Nonstick cooking spray
See recipe card at bottom of post for ingredient amounts.
🔪 How to Make Apple Dumplings
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a small baking dish with non stick cooking spray and set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine cinnamon and sugar. Set aside.
- Roll out pie dough and cut circle in quarters. You may need to roll the dough out a little more depending on the size of your apple. Place whole apples in the center of each section of dough.
- Place ½ tablespoon butter in center of each apple and top it off with 1 tablespoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture.
- Moisten the edges of the pie crust by dipping your fingers in a little cold water and spreading it around the dough round. Wrap apple in the pie crust, being careful to seal any seams. If you have enough dough left over you can also cut out some cute little leaves and add a stem to the apple.
- Place apple dumplings in prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar mixture on top of the dough.
- Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour or until pie crust becomes golden brown.
- Microwave salted caramel sauce in jar according to package instructions. Stir in 1 tablespoon rum (if using).
- Drizzle caramel sauce over top of dumpling and serve.
Equipment
Small baking dish
Small bowl
Rolling pin
Storage
Refrigerate: store leftover apple dumplings in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 4 days.
Reheat: warm apple dumplings in the oven or air fryer at 350 degrees until warmed through. They can be reheated in the microwave, but it is not recommended due to the pastry dough.
Variations
Crescent Roll Apple Dumplings: substitute crescent roll dough for the pastry dough using two triangles of crescent rolls per dumpling.
Top Tips
- Bring the pie dough to room temperature before rolling out, this will make it easier to work with.
- Don't roll the pie dough out too thin, if you do so, you will have difficulty with the pie dough tearing.
- Use an apple corer to easily remove the core of the apple.
- To easily peel the apples, use an apple peeler or one of these Swiss peelers will do the job.
📚 Related Recipes
Classic Apple Pie
Old-Fashioned Apple Dumplings
🍽 Serve with..
Serve warm with caramel sauce drizzled over top of the dumplings with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
📖 Recipe
Easy Apple Dumplings with Salted Caramel Sauce
Equipment
- Small baking dish
- Apple corer
- Apple peeler or knife
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Ingredients
- 1 refrigerated pie crust sheet
- 4 medium apples
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons butter , cut into smaller cubes
- 4 tablespoons Salted Caramel Sauce
- 1 tablespoon dark rum , optional
- cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a small baking dish with non stick cooking spray and set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine cinnamon and sugar. Set aside.
- Roll out pie dough and cut circle in quarters. You may need to roll the dough out a little more depending on the size of your apple. Place whole apples in the center of each section of dough.
- Place ½ tablespoon butter in center of each apple and top it off with 1 tablespoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture.
- Moisten the edges of the pie crust by dipping your fingers in a little cold water and spreading it around the dough round. Wrap apple in the pie crust, being careful to seal any seams. If you have enough dough left over you can also cut out some cute little leaves and add a stem to the apple.
- Place apple dumplings in prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar mixture on top of the dough.
- Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour or until pie crust becomes golden brown.
- Microwave salted caramel sauce in jar according to package instructions. Stir in 1 tablespoon rum (if using).
- Drizzle caramel sauce over top of dumpling and serve.
Sarah Reid says
This is right up my alley!
Julie @ Texan New Yorker says
Oh wow, these look and sound fabulous!
Shaina Wizov says
Salted caramel rum sauce sounds amazing!! I would eat this with a spoon!
Life Tastes Good says
You know me - anything with salted caramel gets my attention! I love fall too! It is so comforting in so many ways - the food, the colors, the weather, the clothes... it's my fave! This recipe looks amazing!
Cindy Kerschner says
salted caramel is perfect for fall. A great choice for these apple dumplings!
Shannon says
Um, yes? That's all I can say here. This post had me almost licking the screen. SO yummy looking.
Liz Berg says
Shelby, you sure look like you've been baking these for years! Such a spectacular fall dessert!!!
Christie Campbell says
I love the idea of the caramel rum sauce. I bet it's delicious over the dumplings.
The Ninja Baker says
Funny how food is attached to people and good times. Looks like you did a splendid job replicating the apple dumpling, Shelby =) ...I may very well be replicating the recipe soon, too!
Carla says
Ohhh I have both apples and rum in my kitchen right now! May need to make these soon.
KC the Kitchen Chopper says
Hi Shelby, I got some dough in my freezer calling for an Apple Dumpling. I've not made them before but I think it'll be worth a try! Pinned!