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Dessert

Baked Apple Dumplings

Baked apple dumplings are pastry squares filled with apples, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Baked Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dumplings

  1. Cut the pie crust into six-inch squares.

  2. Place a small apple in the center of each square.

  3. Fill the apples with sugar, cinnamon, and a whole clove.

  4. Wet the edges of the pastry with egg white.

  5. Fold the pastry over the apple, pinch, and flute the edges.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes.

  2. Toward the end, brush the top with egg white and sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Serve with hard sauce.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rich pie crust
Wraps the apples and bakes into a flaky, golden shell that holds the filling.
Apples
Cook down in the oven to become soft, sweet and moist inside the pastry.
Egg white
Seals the pastry edges and, brushed on top, helps the crust brown and gives a glossy finish.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, sprinkled on top, adds a crisp, lightly caramelized surface.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry around the apple. If the edges are not wet and pinched firmly, the pastry can open or leak sugary juices during baking, leaving the apple exposed and the filling dry or burnt.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, clove, egg. 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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