Dinner Train: Middlemarch - Wrapples

Wrapples and a fruity beer?
I doubt Casaubon would approve. 
But your mouth will, and you'll need
a cold one to help you
survive Middlemarch...

If you were awaiting my post on my March challenge of Middlemarch for the Dinner Train Book Club with bated breath, you are now dead.  Which is cool, because I didn't know ghosts can read blogs.  For the rest of you, sorry.  Not really, because this one was a big ole struggle to get through.  Long, often boring, with beautiful, realistic character descriptions, and not much else (I did enjoy the town of Freshit - come on, I'm a boy of twelve at heart!).  This, therefore, probably describes the reason why exactly zero friends, family, strangers took me up on my offer to read along and eat with me.  Which left me alone with my thoughts, and a desire to not cook a full meal based on this book.  Sure, there is some good food description throughout, like the spread described at Old Man Featherstone's estate auction, but most food seemed to veer towards hocks of meat.  Except for one scene in chapter 24 (XXIV - I make no claims to being able to read Roman numerals), wherein Mrs. Garth is making apple puffs (see below the recipe for the excerpt).  Curious, I thought.  And curiouser and curiouser, because when I realized I'd be holding a book club by myself, apple puffs in excess won out over hock of ham.

I took to the internets to find a recipe for apple puffs to make from scratch.  Friends...there really are no recipes that don't tell you to start with store made dough.  Andsothere I gave up on the interwebs and took to The Apple Lover's Cookbook, by Amy Traverso, which while lacking in things dubbed Apple Puffs, has about a trillion other apple recipes to choose from.  I settled on Wrapples, though the Apple Empanadas came in a close second.  The recipe is fairly close to hers, with only a minor change; I realized the leftover juices from marinating the apples with lemon and sugar and cinnamon were actually quite delicious, and why waste delicious?  Mrs. Garth would slap the wrist of a waster!  I reappropriated the juice for my glaze, with delicious results.  A big thank you to The Asphalt Kitchen for helping me knead and prepare the pastry dough, and assemble and then eat them, as well as to the hungry stomachs who helped test them out (H & B).  Considering my Poptart ate two before the Hunger Games even started (Peeta would approve), I think we can all call them a delicious success - even if Middlemarch was a bust.

Wrapples

Wrapple

(adapted from The Apple Lover's Cookbook, by Amy Traverso)

Makes approximately 8 fatties and 10-12 mini's (still pretty sizable)