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Dessert

Baked Apple Dumpling

A baked apple dumpling made with pie crust, apples, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,377 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Baked Apple Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a rich pie crust.

  2. Pare and core some apples.

  3. Fill each apple with a tablespoon of white sugar.

  4. Place a small piece of butter on top of each apple.

  5. Fold pastry around each apple.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the dumplings in the oven.

  2. Put a small piece of butter on top of each dumpling after they are placed in the oven.

  3. Almost cover the dumplings with cold water.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to each dumpling and grated nutmeg.

  5. Bake about 2 hours, keeping them covered the first hour then removing the cover.

  6. No other sauce except that in pan will be necessary.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

163Calories
0 gProtein
12 gFat
14 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Dumplingnot 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 Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). 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 + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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 (in the method)
Provide the fruit filling that softens and turns tender during the long bake.
Pie crust pastry
Encloses each apple, forming a rich, flaky wrapper that holds the filling while baking.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apple juices form a syrup in the pan.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, moistening the apples and the pastry as it melts.

The step that matters

Bake about 2 hours, keeping them covered the first hour then removing the cover.. The covered first hour traps steam so the apples cook through and soften, while uncovering later lets the pastry dry and brown.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

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