Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Individual 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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Butter the muffin rings and place them on a well-buttered shallow pan.
Fill the rings with sliced apples.
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Cut in the shortening until crumbly.
Gradually add the milk or water to form a dough.
Bake and serve
Drop the dough over the apples in the rings.
Bake for about 20 minutes.
Remove each dumpling from the ring with a spatula and place crust side down on a dish.
Serve with cream and sugar, hard sauce, or fruit sauce.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Apple + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Pastry flour
- Forms the structure of the dough crust around the apples.
- Shortening
- Cut into the flour to create a tender, flaky crumb in the crust.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the dough rises and lightens.
- Milk or water
- Hydrates the flour to bind the dough into a workable mixture.
- Sliced apples
- Provide the fruit filling that softens and sweetens during baking.
The step that matters
Cutting in the shortening until crumbly. Shortening coated in flour and left in small pieces melts during baking and creates separate layers, so the crust stays tender. If the fat is overmixed into the flour, the crust becomes tough and dense.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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