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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

A steamed dumpling made with a dough of flour, baking powder, salt, lard, and milk or water, filled with whole or sliced apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, and lard.

  2. Add enough milk or water to form a dough, working it as little as possible.

Assemble the dumplings

  1. Roll out the dough and cut it into squares.

  2. Peel and core the apples.

  3. Place one whole apple in each square, or cut large apples and add a little sugar.

  4. Bring the corners of the dough up around the apples and pinch to seal.

Steam and serve

  1. Ensure the water is boiling before placing the steamer on.

  2. Steam the dumplings for 30 minutes.

  3. Use a napkin in the steamer to lift out the dumplings without breaking.

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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the dough's structure, which holds the dumpling together while it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the dumplings rise and stay light.
Lard
Fat that coats the flour and keeps the dough tender and flaky.
Apples
Supply moisture and tart-sweet flavor that fills each dumpling as it cooks.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds richness and a little browning to the dough.

The step that matters

Working the dough as little as possible. Overworking flour and liquid develops gluten, which makes the dough tough and chewy instead of tender. Mixing just until the dough comes together keeps the dumplings soft.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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.

More apple dumplings recipes

Baked 92Boiled 30Steamed 8 See all 219 →

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