Recipe: Fruit Dumplings (or Svestkove Knedliky in Czech)

In our family, svestkove knedliky was served as a full dinner — even though it seems more like a breakfast, lunch or side. We’d do it with plums, peaches, apricots, or cherries, and covered in lots of butter and sugar (a simultaneous eek! and yay!). It was THE dinner treat when staying with grandparents or on special occasions. I’m on a current mission to make this part of my dinner rotation at home…

Here’s a recipe passed down in a Czechoslovak pastry cookbook copyright 1952 by Charlotte G. Masaryk Society, NY, NY (my edition published by F. Pancner, Inc., Berwyn, IL):

Fruit Dumplings (Svestkove Knedliky)
2 cups flour
1 egg, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt

Mix egg with butter and milk. Add salt. Sift flour on a board and add first mixture, kneading until smooth. Cut dough into small pieces and wrap evenly around the fruit (make sure to pre-pit your fruit!). Seal well all around. Drop dumplings in a large pan of boiling salted water and cook for about 8 minutes. Do not overcook. Remove from water immediately, sprinkle with melted butter and keep in a colander over hot water until ready to serve. Arrange on a platter, sprinkle with some more melted butter and sugar. Crumbled pot cheese, ground poppy seed or bread crumbs fried in butter can be used for topping.

Related: Recipe: Houska (Czech Easter Bread)

(Images: Royalmenu.cz)