Most of the dumpling recipes from 1800s cookbooks are for rounded dumplings. Some recipes say to wrap the dumplings in cloth, like when boiling a pudding. Others say to roll the dumplings in a ball or drop the dumpling mixture from a spoon into hot liquid.

The only dumplings I’ve ever eaten were ones rolled out flat and cut into small rectangular strips before being dropped into a soup.  

INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS:

FINE SUET DUMPLINGS
Grate the crumb of a stale loaf of bread and mix it with nearly as much beef suet,* chopped as fine as possible. Add a grated nutmeg and two heaped tablespoons of sugar. Beat four eggs with four tablespoons of white wine or brandy. Mix all well together to a stiff paste. Flour your hands and make up the mixture into balls about the size of turkey eggs. Have ready a pot of boiling water. Put the dumplings into cloths and let them boil about half an hour. Serve hot and eat them with wine sauce.

*suet – the hard white fat on the kidneys and loins of cattle, sheep, and other animals.

OXFORD DUMPLINGS
Beat until quite light, one tablespoon of sugar and the yolks of three eggs. Add half a cup of finely chopped suet, half a cup of English currants, one cup of sifted flour in which there has been sifted a heaping teaspoon of baking powder, a little nutmeg, one teaspoon of salt and, lastly, the beaten whites of the eggs. Flour your hands and make it into balls the size of an egg. Boil in separate cloths one hour or more. Serve with wine sauce.

HERB DUMPLINGS
Take a loaf of bread, cut off the crust, and slice the rest. Put to the slices as much hot milk as will just wet it. Take the yolks and whites of six eggs, beat them with two spoons of powdered sugar, half a nutmeg, and a little salt and put it to your bread. Take half a pound of currants well cleaned, and put them to your eggs.

Then take a handful of the mildest herbs you can get. Gather them equally so that the taste of one be not above the other (don’t put any parsley among them, nor any other strong herb). Wash and chop them very small and put as many of them in as will make a deep green. Mix them all together and boil them in a cloth, each about the bigness of middling* apples. About half an hour will boil them. Put them into your dish and have a little candid orange, white wine, butter and sugar for the sauce.

*middling – of medium size. Could also refer to pork or bacon cut from between the ham and shoulder of a pig.

DROP DUMPLINGS
These are good for almost any kind of soup. They may be made of a quart of flour, two eggs, a spoonful of butter, some salt and pepper, wet with milk and water. Drop them in while the soup is boiling, and let them boil ten or fifteen minutes.

INDIAN DUMPLINGS
Take a pint of milk and four eggs well-beaten. Stir them together and add a saltspoon* of salt. Then mix in as much sifted Indian meal* as will make a stiff dough. Flour your hands, divide the dough into equal portions, and make it into balls about the size of a goose egg. Flatten each with the rolling-pin, tie them in cloths, and put them into a pot of boiling water. They will boil in a short time. Take care not to let them go to pieces by keeping them too long in the pot. Serve them up hot, and eat them with corned pork or with bacon. Or you may eat them with molasses and butter after the meat is removed. If to be eaten without meat, you may mix in the dough a quarter of a pound of finely chopped suet.

*saltspoon – a miniature spoon used with an open salt cellar for individual use before table salt was free-flowing.
*Indian meal – coarsely ground corn (cornmeal)

CORN DUMPLINGS
When you boil corned beef, new bacon, or pork, you can make dumplings by taking some grease out of the pot with some of the water, and pouring it hot on a quart of Indian meal. Mix and work it well, make into little round cakes, which should be stiff, or they will boil to pieces. Take out the meat when it is done, and boil the dumplings in the same water for half an hour. They may be eaten with molasses, and make a good common dessert.

HAM DUMPLINGS
Chop some cold ham, the fat and lean in equal proportions. Season it with pepper and minced sage. Make a crust, allowing half a pound of chopped suet, or half a pound of butter to a pound of flour. Roll it out thick, and divide it into equal portions. Put some minced ham into each, and close up the crust. Have ready a pot of boiling water, and put in the dumplings. Boil them about three-quarters of an hour.

BELLE’S DUMPLINGS
Mix one quart prepared flour, two and one-half tablespoons of mixed lard and butter, and two cups of milk, or enough for soft dough.

Roll out one-fourth inch thick and cut into oblong pieces, rounded at the corners. Put a great spoonful of damson, cherry, or other tart preserve in the middle and roll into a dumpling. Bake about forty minutes, brush over with beaten egg, while hot, and shut up in the oven three minutes to glaze. Eat hot with brandy sauce.

YEAST DUMPLINGS
Take two pounds of flour, a halfpenny worth of yeast,* a pinch of salt, and one pint of milk or water. Put the flour into a pan, and with your fist, hollow out a hole in the center of the flour. Place the yeast and salt at the bottom, then add the milk (which should be lukewarm), and with your clean hand gradually mix the whole well together, working the dough perfectly smooth and elastic. The pan containing the dough must then be covered over with a cloth, and in the winter must be placed on a stool in a corner near the fire, that it may rise, or increase in size to nearly double its original quantity.

When the dough has risen in a satisfactory manner, which will take about an hour, dip your hand in some flour and knead it together, without allowing it to stick to your hands. Divide it into about twelve equal parts, then roll these with flour into balls. As you turn them out of hand, drop them gently into a pot on the fire, half full of boiling water.

Allow the water to boil up once as you drop each dumpling in separately before you attempt to put in another, in order to prevent the dumplings from sticking together. Yeast dumplings must not boil too fast, as then they might boil out of the pot. They will require about half an hour’s boiling to cook them. They must be eaten immediately, with a little butter or dripping,* and salt or sugar.

*dripping / drippings – the fat and juices from the roasting pan when cooking meat.

* NOTE: I haven’t been able to find out how much yeast a halfpenny would buy, but this recipe for Mom’s Chicken and Dumplings recipe on Cooks.com uses yeast.

Image from Deposit Photos

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