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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Apple dumplings are baked apples wrapped in pie crust, rolled in sugar, topped with a boiled sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Peel and core the apples.

  3. Fill each apple with gooseberry preserves, grated apples, raisins, and almonds.

  4. Roll the apples in sugar, then wrap them in the thin pie crust.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake the dumplings slowly in the oven.

  2. For the icing, boil 1 cup of sugar and ½ cup of water.

  3. Stir the boiling mixture into the beaten egg white.

  4. Pour the icing over the baked apples and serve with cream.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Gooseberry + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + gooseberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl isobutyrate (flower).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and juicy filling that softens as the dumplings bake.
Thin pie crust
Encloses the apples so the filling stays inside while the dumplings bake.
Egg white
Lends structure to the icing, helping it stay light and form a coating.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and, when boiled with water, forms the icing.

The step that matters

Stir the boiling syrup into the egg white. Pouring boiling syrup into beaten egg white gradually cooks and thickens the white into a glossy icing. Adding it too fast or too cool can leave the icing runny or grainy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gooseberry, raisin, almond, sugar, egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gooseberry, raisin, almond, sugar, egg, cream. 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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