Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Apple dumplings baked with muffin rings, sliced apples, and pastry dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter the muffin rings and set them in a shallow baking pan.

  2. Fill the rings with the sliced apples, packing them tightly and slightly mounding them.

Make and bake the dough

  1. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder four times.

  2. Chop in the lard and butter mixture, then stir in the water with a knife.

  3. Drop the dough on top of the apples, smoothing and shaping it.

  4. Bake for about 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C) until the apples are tender and the dough is baked.

Serve

  1. Remove with a cake turner to hot plates; the muffin rings will slip off easily.

  2. Serve with raspberry or strawberry sauce.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 becomes tender and sweet as it bakes.
Pastry flour
Forms the dough structure that bakes into a tender, set crust over the apples.
Lard and butter mixture
Adds fat that keeps the dough tender and flaky as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the dough rises and becomes light.
Water
Moistens the flour so the fat and flour combine into a workable dough.

The step that matters

Chop in the lard and butter mixture, then stir in the water with a knife. Keeping the fat in small, cold pieces and mixing only until moistened makes the dough flaky; overworking develops gluten and makes it tough.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipes