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Dessert

English Apple Dumplings

A baked dish of apple dumplings made with suet, flour, apples, sugar, lemon peel, and nutmeg, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

English Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix ½ lb suet with 1 lb flour to make a paste; chop suet finely.

  2. Cut apples into thin slices.

  3. Place each dumpling with a heaping teaspoon of sugar, a little lemon peel, and a pinch of grated nutmeg.

  4. Grease the dish well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the dumplings around the dish.

  2. Spread some drippings over the dumplings.

  3. Pour light brown sugar thickly over the dumplings, placing a large quantity in the bottom of the dish.

  4. Add one pint of water.

  5. When the mixture begins to brown, begin to baste frequently.

  6. Serve on a flat dish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

24Calories
1 gProtein
1 gFat
5 gCarbs

Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 2 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour (in the method)
Forms the paste that wraps around the fruit and holds the dumpling together.
Suet (in the method)
Adds fat that keeps the dumpling paste rich and tender as it cooks.
Apples (in the method)
Provide the fruit filling that softens and turns sweet-tart as it bakes.
Light brown sugar (in the method)
Sweetens the dumplings and helps them brown and form a syrup in the dish.

The step that matters

Basting once the mixture begins to brown. Basting keeps the surface moist and promotes even browning, so the dumplings do not dry out or scorch before the paste is cooked through.

“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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