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Dessert

Apple Slump

A simple apple cake made by stewing apples, covering them with a rolled dough, and baking until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Slump

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the apples.

  2. Add a little water and sugar to taste, then stew until tender.

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, add salt, and mix in the milk.

  2. Turn the mixture onto a lightly floured surface and roll to ½ inch thickness.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the rolled dough over the stewed apples, cover, and cook for 10 minutes without lifting the lid.

  2. Serve hot with cream and sugar or soft custard.

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. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provide the fruit filling that softens and sweetens as it stews.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough that covers the apples.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the dough rise and turn light.
Milk
Moistens the flour and gives the dough tenderness and browning.

The step that matters

Cover and cook without lifting the lid. Lifting the lid lets steam escape, which cools the surface and can stop the baking powder dough from rising evenly and cooking through.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk. 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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