Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Baked Apple Dumplings
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel, quarter, and core the apples.
In a bowl, mix baking powder with flour. Cut in butter until crumbly.
Add milk gradually to form a stiff dough.
Roll out the dough and cut into strips.
Wrap the strips around each apple piece.
Bake
In a pudding dish, combine water and sugar.
Place the wrapped apples in the dish and pour the water-sugar mixture over them.
Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Apple + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Apples
- Provide the fruit filling that softens and sweetens as the dumplings bake.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the dough that wraps and holds the apples.
- Butter
- Cut into the flour to create a crumbly, tender texture in the dough.
- Baking powder
- Leavens the dough so it rises and bakes up light rather than dense.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup that bathes the dumplings and browns as they bake.
The step that matters
Forming the stiff dough. Adding milk gradually lets you judge the dough's consistency. Too much liquid makes it sticky and hard to wrap, while too little leaves it dry and prone to cracking. Cutting the butter in only until crumbly keeps the dough tender.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, sugar. 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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