Guilty Pleasures Week: Country Apple Dumplings

Guilty Pleasures. We all have them. Merriam-Webster defines a guilty pleasure as something pleasurable that induces a usually minor feeling of guilt. For some this guilt stems from a goofy tv show and for others it is a awesomely bad song or band. Well what happens if your guilty pleasure is food so good that it causes an immense amount of elation and euphoria while simultaneously adding three inches to your waist? The only solution I can think of is to make it and try to feed a majority of it to your skinniest friend. Just kidding! (or am I? muahaha)
This week I decided to make and share some of my top guilty pleasure foods. These items are so amazing yet so bad that they make you wanna go to confession. They are all quite unhealthy and borderline kooky but I love them....even if I have to run on a treadmill for two days to burn the calories off.
The first item I give you is the Country Apple Dumpling. A coworker actually shared this recipe with me about three years ago and I have been hooked ever since. Now let me tell you first off that I had no idea how these were made when I first tried them. And that is a good thing since I hate, I mean loathe Mountain Dew. Yes. I said it. This recipe uses Mountain Dew. Now is a good time for all the health nuts to push the little x in the upper right hand corner of your screen because it gets uglier. Besides a can of soda this treat has 2 sticks of butter and a cup and a half of sugar. And for all of you people with your jaws on the ground...this isn't a joke. Somehow these ingredients make up one of my guiltiest of pleasures. So pull out your sweatpants and enjoy!

I will note that this recipe can be be modified to be slightly better for you by using diet soda and cutting back on the butter and sugar. But that's no fun! :)

Country Apple Dumplings
2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
2 cans refrigerated crescent roll dough
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle Mountain Dew

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Peel each apple and cut into 8 wedges and set aside. Separate the crescent roll dough into triangles. Roll each apple wedge in crescent roll dough starting at the smallest end. Pinch to seal and place in the baking dish. Melt butter in a small saucepan or in microwave safe bowl and stir in the sugar and cinnamon. Pour over the apple dumplings. Pour Mountain Dew over the dumplings. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, flipping dumplings halfway through. The liquid will thicken as it cools.Serve warm or reheated with vanilla ice cream. Gorge!

The beautiful natural apple...before I drowned it in butter and sugar

Golden brown puffs of deliciousness straight out of the oven

The result! A gooey sweet appley hot mess

Guilty Pleasure Numero Uno

(Thanks Dad for the hookup on a sweet set of Fiesta Plates and Platters)