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Dessert

Baked Apple Dumpling

A baked dessert of dough filled with apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter, baked in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Baked Apple Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the butter thoroughly with the dough and let it rise for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

  2. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces.

  3. If the dough has a sour odor, dissolve ¼ teaspoon baking soda in 1 teaspoon milk, roll out the dough, coat it with the mixture, fold, and knead well.

  4. Roll out each piece of dough a little thinner towards the edge.

Fill and shape

  1. Place an apple in the center of each piece, add a little brown sugar, a pinch of cinnamon, and a small bit of butter.

  2. Enclose the apple in the dough and place it smooth side up in a baking dish.

  3. Let the dumplings stand for 1 hour to rise again.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of sugar between the dumplings and add small bits of butter.

  2. Pour in ½ pint of hot water and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.

  3. Serve with sauce or with sugar and cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raised dough
Traps gas from yeast to create a light, airy, bread-like wrapper.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the dough brown as it bakes.
Apples
Provide the filling, softening and turning tart and juicy as they bake.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps create a caramel flavor in the juices.
Baking soda
Neutralizes acidity in the dough when it has turned sour.

The step that matters

Enclosing the apples in the dough. Dough must be sealed fully around each apple so juices and sugar do not leak out during baking. Smooth, even dough also rises and bakes more uniformly, keeping the wrapper intact.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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