Apple Roly-Poly

Oh my gosh, this is a fantastic dessert recipe! It’s hard to describe Apple Roly-Poly. Shredded apple is wrapped up in a homemade pie crust sort of dough. But then a syrup is poured over all the pinwheels before baking and it cooks up to almost a cake-like texture. It is heavenly.

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I wanted to make up a dessert for our neighbors back in May. She always brings us pizza or Chinese food, or a homemade soup — at least once or twice a month. I had seen this recipe and decided to give it a try. I made two of them, one for her and one for us. I will tell you, I think the servings with ice cream were even better!

Apple Roly-Poly is like a cobbler, with a cake-like texture. It’s full of flavor and fruit. My husband who ate a lot of it, thought it was heavenly. Our neighbor told me it was better than almost anything she had ever eaten. High praise, indeed! If you enjoy peaches, here’s the peach version.

Even still, this is not the easiest dessert to whip up. I found the crust to be too dry. Look, I’ve baked A LOT of pies over the past six decades, so I’m not too bad at making pie crust(!). Even though I added additional sour cream to the mixture, I did not add enough to make it an easy dough to work with. (I should have added more).

While I was gently rolling up the pinwheels, I found the dough teared and I had to keep pinching the dough together while rolling so it wouldn’t have tear-seams in the dough. The recipe called for about 5 cups of shredded apple. I found that I could only use three cups because I couldn’t even roll up the dough with that much apple on top! (Since then, I have made this recipe several times and I recommend using only 1 1/2 to 2 cups of fruit).

But in the end, that really didn’t matter. Because once the pinwheels are cut and set cut-side-up and the syrup is poured over the top everything bakes together and the dessert is utterly delightful. If you are a novice baker, work with someone who knows how to make homemade pie crust and try this recipe together. It’s too good to not give it a try. For those of you who are old-fashioned cooks like me, work with the dough. Add a little more sour cream (or water) or whatever liquid necessary to get the dough to roll properly.

Apple Roly-Poly is a work of art, along with being one of the best desserts you’ll ever sink your teeth into.

Apple Roly-Poly is heavenly!

We liked it with and without ice cream, but liked it better with ice cream!

The texture does not cook up like pie crust. It cooks up more cake-like. It’s absolutely wonderful. 🙂

Lots of apples, cinnamon and syrup are baked into this cobbler dessert. Talk about mouthwatering. 🙂

Here’s what I did.

I used these ingredients for the dumpling dough (crust) layer.

Place unbleached flour in a mixing bowl (bleached flour toughens baked goods). Add granulated sugar, baking powder and salt.

Stir ingredients well to combine.

Add cold butter and cut in with a pastry blender.

Cut in butter with a pastry blender until coarse crumbs form.

Add sour cream. I would recommend doubling the sour cream amount over what the original recipe stated.

Stir to combine well. You can see that the mixture is still on the dry side.

Spread the crumb mixture over top of a floured surface.

I did my best to try to clump the ingredients together into a ball, but the mixture was still on the dry side.

Roll out the dough.

I used these ingredients for the filling.

Spread softened butter over top of the pie crust.

Spread brown sugar over buttered surface with your hand and work into crevices to even out.

Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Shred apple.

Spread shredded apple over top of cinnamon layer. The original recipe called for 5 cups. I could only fit 3 cups of shredded apple on this layer.

Roll dough up gently and carefully! You can see how the dough cracked and tore during rolling. It needed a lot more moisture than the original recipe suggested.

Roll up and try to seal the edges as well as possible.

Cut the dough into about 12 even pieces.

Carefully lift the dough and turn cut-side up and place in a lightly greased 9×13″ glass baking dish.

I used these ingredients for the syrup.

Pour water into a medium saucepan and heat to medium.

Add brown sugar and cinnamon.

Combine ingredients with a whisk and bring mixture to a boil.

Remove from heat and add half-and-half.

Stir well to combine. Mixture is thin.

Ladle the syrup mixture over top of all the pinwheels in the baking dish. Use ALL of the syrup.

Now the Apple Roly-Poly is ready for the oven.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. The cobbler will be lightly browned and only a tiny bit jiggly in the middle. If it is too jiggly, bake another 5 minutes.

Serve with ice cream if desired.

Apple Roly-Poly is wonderful. All the layers cook together and form one of the best cobbler desserts ever (even if the crust tore a little bit while rolling!)

Here’s a close up so you can see the texture of this scrumptious dessert.

Every bite is “rock-your-world” good!

Here’s the recipe.

APPLY ROLY-POLY

(Recipe adapted from Taste of Home, Prize Winning Recipes, pg. 92)

Apple Roly-Poly

Teresa Ambra

Enjoy the Down East flavors of this old-fashioned apple cobbler dessert. Apply Roly-Poly is filled with apples and cinnamon and rolled up like pinwheels. A cinnamon-sugar syrup is poured over the Roly-Polys before baking. Everything bakes up into one scrumptious dessert that will have you swooning over every bite. Terrific served with ice cream.

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Prep Time 45 minutes mins

Cook Time 35 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 12

Calories 333 kcal

Equipment

• 1 9×13" glass baking dish
• 1 large mixing bowl
• 1 medium sauce pan
• 1 whisk
• 1 wooden spoon
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• 1 vegetable grater or shredder or food processor (to shred apples)
• 1 cutting board
• 1 paring knife

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

DUMPLING DOUGH:

• 1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (bleached flour toughens baked goods)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/2 cup salted butter cold
• 3/4 to 1 cup sour cream or more, if needed (can also substitute Greek yogurt) (see note below)

FILLING:

• 1/4 cup salted butter softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar packed
• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 3 cups apples peeled, cored and shredded (I used sweet Fuji apples) (SEE NOTE BELOW)

TOPPING:

• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar packed
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup half-and-half cream

Instructions

 

DUMPLING DOUGH:

• In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
• Stir until well combined.
• Cut in butter with a pastry blender until coarse crumbs form.
• Add sour cream or Greek yogurt and blend until it is completely worked into the dough.
• This will take 2-3 minutes of stirring.
• Roll out dough on a floured surface to measure a 10×15” rectangle. (See note below).

FILLING:

• Spread dough with softened butter.
• Sprinkle evenly with brown sugar, then cinnamon.
• Finally, add the shredded apple over top as evenly as possible.
• Roll up dough jelly-roll style starting with the long end.
• Roll tightly but gently so dough doesn’t tear.
• Cut dough into 12 even slices.
• Place slices cut-side down in a lightly greased 9×13” glass baking dish.

TOPPING:

• Combine water, brown sugar and cinnamon in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
• Bring ingredients to a boil; remove from heat.
• Stir in cream.
• Carefully pour the hot topping over the dumplings trying to spread as evenly as possible so all of the dumplings get coverage.
• Bake roly-poly at 350° for 35 minutes, or until bubbly.
• (The center of the dish will jiggle slightly when dumplings are hot out of the oven, but will set up as dumplings stand and cool for a few minutes).
• Serve warm with ice cream if desired. 

Notes

NOTE: If you have to substitute yogurt for the sour cream, Icelandic yogurt is much thicker than Greek yogurt so it is much closer in texture to sour cream than regular Greek yogurt.

 

NOTE: This is sort of a high maintenance recipe as it was originally written. The dumpling dough is hard to work with and tears easily because it is too dry and not moist enough to hold its shape. I recommend increasing the sour cream to 1 to 1 ½ cups so that the dough will roll into a ball. Use a generously floured surface to roll the dough out on. When rolling the dough into a pinwheel, go very slowly and very gently, using your fingertips and working in any extra dough where you have tears. The recipe is so delicious that it’s worth the extra work. Don’t give up!

 

NOTE: I also think this recipe would be a lot easier if you use much less filling. The original recipe calls for FIVE CUPS of apples. I paired that down to THREE CUPS in this batch.  Even still, it is too much filling for the dough. I think 1 1/2 to 2 cups of apples is sufficient to make the Roly-Polys. 

 

NOTE: The rolled dough does not have to be perfect, because once the topping is poured over top it will absorb into the dough while baking and you won’t notice any imperfections!

 

NOTE: I baked this dish for 40 minutes, since it was a little too jiggly at 35 minutes.

 

Recipe adapted from Taste of Home.

 

Taste of Home no longer has a search engine that allows you to search recipes by title. Most of the time, you have to weed through thousands of recipes in collections. If any link is to be found, I find direct links through google, not their own website. I could not locate a direct page for this recipe. But it is in the cookbook noted above.

 

^© Can’t Stay Out of the Kitchen

Nutrition

Calories: 333kcalCarbohydrates: 47gProtein: 3gFat: 16gSaturated Fat: 9gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0.5gCholesterol: 43mgSodium: 365mgPotassium: 124mgFiber: 2gSugar: 31gVitamin A: 501IUVitamin C: 2mgCalcium: 163mgIron: 1mg

Keyword apples, cinnamon, cobbler, dessert

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

This luscious apple dessert is a cobbler like no other!

Apple Roly-Poly sizzles with apples, cinnamon and a cinnamon-brown sugar syrup that bakes into the pinwheels. Irresistible!

Every bite will have you swooning!

Enjoy the Down East flavors of Maine in this fabulous dessert recipe!

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