September 15, 1954

I did the awfulest thing this morn. I slept till 10:30. I worked on my suit jacket this aft. Made caramel dumplings for supper. Tuck is so cute. He just plays & lays on your shoulder like a baby. Wrote letters tonite.

Well! If sleeping till 10:30 is the awfulest thing she’s ever done, she’ll turn out all right!

I believe the suit jacket she’s working on is the suit she’s making for after her wedding, for traveling on their honeymoon.

I had never heard of Caramel Dumplings till now, but My Cowboy loves caramel anything, so I decided to give them a try, using Hazel’s own recipe.

I’ve updated it a little for you here to make it a little more clear. They passed the Cowboy test, so it was worth spending a little time in the kitchen today!

Caramel Dumplings

Sauce:
2 cups sugar
2 cups boiling water
1 tablespoon butter

Burn the sugar in a heavy non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in the butter, then add the water slowly, still stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium, and let the mixture boil for 10 minutes, stirring very frequently.

Dough:
1 tablespoon butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups plus 1 tablespoon flour

Stir the baking powder into the sugar, then add the milk and butter. Mix well, and gradually add the flour to make a stiff dough.

Drop the dough by teaspoonfuls onto the hot caramel sauce in the skillet.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until done.

Let cool a little, and serve with whipped cream.

Here’s a few extra hints and tips I discovered while making mine:

You need to use a pan that can make the transition from stovetop to oven, to prevent having to move the sauce into another pan for baking. This is a messy dish! I used my porcelain-coated cast iron skillet, and it worked great. A heavy-bottomed stainless steel pan would probably also work.

Burning the sugar was the scariest part! First, it crystallized, then it turned slightly brown, then it liquefied, then turned into a wonderful brown sticky sauce.

Add the water gradually, because it tends to want to “flare up”, and you don’t want any cooking injuries, or nasty messes.

Here’s what my sauce looked like while it was boiling for 10 minutes:

It’s a good idea to have all the ingredients measured out ahead of time, have the boiling water already boiling, and all your needed utensils at hand when you start, because you can’t walk off and leave it, and it seems everything happens at once!

Here’s how they looked when they came out of the oven. MMmmm!

The caramel sauce gets all sticky around them, and they’re very sweet and rich. If My Cowboy likes ’em, you know they’re good!

While I had water boiling anyway, I made another batch of hummingbird food. I use 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup sugar, boil it for 1 minute, then let it cool, and fill up the feeder. My Cowboy put some red food coloring in this batch, even though we usually don’t even bother with that. It’s about time for the hummingbirds to stop coming around. The weather is starting to cool off, and the days are getting shorter.