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 ↓
Baked Apple Dumplings
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Sift a pint of flour with a teaspoonful of baking powder and half a teaspoonful of salt.
Put a quarter of a pint of butter into the sifted mixture and chop it finely with a knife; mix well, avoiding hand mixing.
Add enough milk to moisten the dough, about a quarter of a pint.
Dust a pastry board with flour, take the dough from the bowl, and roll it lightly into a sheet about an eighth of an inch thick.
Cut the dough into squares large enough to hold an apple.
Assemble the dumplings
Pare and core medium-sized cooking apples, fill each with sugar and a little cinnamon, and place the apple in the middle of a dough square.
Draw the corners of the dough up over the apple, moistening them with a little beaten egg or water to make them stick.
Brush the assembled dumplings with beaten egg.
Bake and serve
Bake in a good oven for about half an hour, or until golden.
Serve with cream.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Flour
- Forms the dough structure that wraps and holds the apple while baking.
- Butter
- Is chopped into the flour to create a tender, flaky texture in the pastry.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough so it rises and becomes light.
- Milk (in the method)
- Moistens the flour and butter so they bind into a workable dough.
- Egg (in the method)
- Brushed on top, it promotes even browning and a glossy golden finish.
The step that matters
Chop the butter in without hand mixing. Butter left in small, cold pieces melts during baking and creates flaky layers. Warming or overworking the butter makes the pastry dense and tough.
“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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