This section is from the book "The Young Wife's Cook Book", by Hannah Mary Peterson . Also available from Amazon: The Young Wife's Cook Book.
Put into a pan as much flour as will make dough enough for the number of dumplings required. Add a little salt, and pour over it as much boiling water as will make a soft dough. Stir it well with a knife, and cut it into pieces large enough to make one dumpling.
Boil about six good-sized potatoes, mash them with a teacupful of milk and a very small piece of butter, and salt to taste. Beat the potatoes and milk together till they are very smooth; add to this flour enough to make dough; lay a large cloth on your pie-board, flour it, roll your dough out, put the apples in it, roll the crust up to form one large dumpling, tie the cloth, and put it in boiling water. Boil it about an hour and a half.
Make a good puff-paste crust, and roll it out a little thicker than a silver dollar. Pare some large apples, and core them with an apple scoop; fill the opening with ground cinnamon, fine sugar, and finely-shred lemon peel. Then roll each apple in a portion of the puff-paste; tie them close in separate cloths, and boil them about one hour. Cut a small piece off the top of each dumpling, and pour in some melted butter; then lay the piece of crust on again; place the dumplings in a dish, and sift fine sugar over them.
Make a paste of six ounces of butter to a pound of flour. Pare your apples, take out the cores, and cover them with the paste. Tie them in cloths, and boil them till the apples are tender. Serve with sugar and cream, or molasses and butter.
Scoop out the cores of the apples, and fill up the centre with a mixture of butter and sugar. Make a nice paste, take a lump of the proper size, enclose the apple in it, and boil the dumplings in nets in place of cloths.
Pare and core your apples or quinces; clean some rice, by rubbing it in a clean dry cloth, but do not wet it. Dip each apple or quince in water, then roll it in the rice. Tie each dumpling in a cloth, and boil them until the rice is soft.
 
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