French Toast Dumplings... Fail.

Before you continue on... take a look at the original recipe here.

Those. Pictures. Look. AMAZING. My mouth waters looking at them, even though I know what happens in the world of reality.

Now. I won't pretend to be a flawless cook and completely rule out user error on this one. Lots of people left comments on the original recipe that made these and loved them.

Clearly, I'm not one of those people.


Another Pinterest Experiment

It sounds simple enough, right?

1 can of Pillsbury Grands Flaky Layers Biscuits
1.5 cups Maple Syrup..good quality if possible
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp. Nutmeg
1 cup cinnamon Sugar (1 part Sugar to 1/2 part Cinnamon)
A dollop of Mascarpone..optional

Simmer the syrup and brown sugar. Add quarters of biscuits (rolled into balls) and simmer till they've doubled in size. Then roll said 'dumplings' in the cinnamon-sugar-nutmeg mix. Eat with mascarpone or sour cream to offset sweetness.

Love your life because of the yummy goodness you just made.



Oh, if only it had been that way for me!

My Experience

It starts out innocent enough.

Syrup, Sugar, Broil. Check.

I think I will always jump out of my skin when the can goes *POP*. Gets me every time.

At this point, I'm thinking: "Man. This is going to be awesome."

Then. They turned out like this. And I really don't need to tell you why that's a bad thing.

I actually wasn't even going to photograph this failure, but Momma Dennis insisted that they were sad enough it needed to be recorded. They kinda look like burnt popcorn chicken, no?

1. The dumplings, made from flaky biscuit dough... flaked. (shocker, I know.) Our first batch completely fell apart. By the third time around, we had conquered the flaky annoyance by more forcefully rolling the dough and using extreme caution in the pan. 

2. There was not enough syrup for an entire package of biscuits. In order for the biscuit quarters to be able to double in size, you clearly cannot cook all of them in the same pot at the same time. By the time we were done with the second batch, the reduced syrup mixture was all but gone, and what's left had crystallized beyond a usable consistency. This is probably a temperature error on our part; however, the recipe gives no specific directions other than "simmer". We simmered, it failed. 

3. The dumplings generally had a poor texture. I'll be the first to admit this is probably our bad. My guess is we didn't cook them long enough, or the dough balls were the wrong size, or they had been rolled a little too forcefully. There's plenty of ways for a first shot at an ambiguous recipe to go wrong.



Despite this terribly disheartening failure, I'm still not ready to write off this recipe. 

In a perfect world I'd have oodles of money, lots of time to experiment, and no qualms about throwing away failed food. I am sure there's a way to get these to turn out right, and I'm sure I could figure it out with a couple more batches. 

Unfortunately, we scarred the hubsters enough that I'll have to give it a while before I try them again. 
I think his face says it all:

He's such a good sport.