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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Whole apples with cores removed, filled with sugar or jam, wrapped in suet paste, and boiled in a cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 36 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare large fine juicy apples and extract the cores without dividing the apple.

  2. Fill each hole with brown sugar and some chips of lemon peel. Squeeze in some lemon juice. Or fill the cavities with raspberry jam or any sort of marmalade.

Make and wrap the dumplings

  1. Make a paste with a pound of suet, chopped as fine as possible, to two pounds and a half of sifted flour, well mixed and wetted with as little water as possible.

  2. Roll out the paste to a moderate thickness and cut it into circular pieces, two pieces to each dumpling.

  3. Lay an apple on one piece, put another piece on top, and close the paste round the sides with your fingers so the apple is entirely covered.

  4. Dip a small coarse cloth in hot water. Boil each dumpling in the cloth.

  5. Tie the cloth tightly, leaving a small space for the dumpling to swell. Plaster a little flour on the inside of each tying place to prevent water getting in.

Boil and serve

  1. Have ready a pot of boiling water. Put in the dumplings and boil them steadily for an hour.

  2. Send them to table hot in a covered dish, taking them up only a moment before they are wanted. Eat them with cream and sugar, or with butter and sugar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1357Calories
59 gProtein
42 gFat
180 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 15 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Beef100g cooked250
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Dumplingnot in our table0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the paste that encloses the apple and holds the dumpling together while it boils.
Suet
Adds fat to the paste, giving a rich, tender texture as it melts during boiling.
Apples (in the method)
Provide the filling, softening as they cook and becoming sweet and tender inside the pastry.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the apple cavity and melts into a syrup as the dumpling cooks.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be tied firmly with only a small space for swelling, and the tie sealed with flour, so water cannot seep in and make the paste soggy while the dumpling boils.

“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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