Instructions: 1. In a bowl, combine the butter, salt, and lemon zest. Whip until fluffy.

Add the whole egg, and egg yolk, and continue to beat to blend. Beat in the farmer cheese, sour cream, and powdered sugar. Add the flour slowly and beat until smooth. Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

2. Cut the plums or apricots in half and remove the pits, if necessary. If the fruit isnt sweet, place 1 cube of sugar in the hollow of each half.

3. On a marble pastry board, roll out dough 1/2 inch thick. Using a pastry wheel, cut the dough into a grid of 5-inch squares. If youre using strawberries, make 18 (3-inch) squares.

4. Place a piece of fruit, cut side down, on each circle of dough and pull the pastry up around the fruit. Seal by pinching the pastry together.

The dumplings can be prepared up to 3 hours ahead to this point.

Refrigerate until ready to boil.

5. Bring 2 quarts of salted water to a boil. Add 8 dumplings and simmer until they rise to the top, approximately 15 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon. Keep warm on a covered plate. Repeat with the remaining dumplings.

6. To serve: Plum dumplings: Sprinkle with poppy seeds and powdered sugar

Apricot dumplings: Sprinkle with farmer cheese, pressed through a sieve, and the powdered sugar

Strawberry dumplings: Roll in the toasted plain bread crumbs and sprinkle with the powdered sugar.

((Note: My mother used to make these with whole pitted apricots and whole pitted plums, always with a sugar cube in the center, and always rolling the finished product in the toasted bread crumbs, and the sprinkling the dumplings with sugar. Karin))

Kisler,

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